


Sons of Jerusalem

by seashadows



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Jewish Character, Jewish Dwarves, M/M, and Dain first appears in chapter 16, for anyone who is curious, in which Tolkien's inspiration for the Dwarves comes to a logical and crazy conclusion, the Hobbit family first appears in chapter 12
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:23:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 321,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Going to Hillel is easier than cooking Shabbat dinner, and Theodor Derensky, history professor and local curmudgeon, has settled into a comfortable Friday-night routine with the rest of the local Jewish community. He doesn't expect a sleep-deprived British triage nurse to stumble in one night and change everything about his life. </p><p>Meanwhile, his nephews have made it their life's mission to wreak havoc, his best friend has a pair of handcuffs waiting for a petty criminal who never seems to want to stay caught, and the Hillel cook can swing a mean spoon. Like it or not, he's never going to be able to shut himself away again. </p><p>Modern AU - Jewish Dwarves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Terrible as an Army with Banners

**Author's Note:**

> WikdSushi and I have been RPing in this universe since June, when this particular Google Chat conversation came about. 
> 
> seashadows: OMG I HAD A FUCKING FANTASTIC IDEA JUST NOW.  
> WikdSushi: What?  
> seashadows: Dwarves = Jews, yes? HILLEL AU. 
> 
> The rest is history. 
> 
> (Yes, I am in fact cribbing chapter titles from the Song of Songs. This one refers to Dori...or this universe's version of him, anyhow.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet a family of siblings whose bickering sets the stage.

  
  
Photoset header by the amazing [bookhoor!](bookhoor.tumblr.com).

“Danny! Danny-Danny-Danny, it’s time to get up!”

“Wha…?” Daniel Reisberg groggily forced his eyes open long enough to look into his sister’s eager face. “Oreet, sweetie, I’m napping.”

“You napped already.” Oreet rolled her eyes, big and deep brown and contrasting sharply with her pale, freckled cheeks. “C’mon, it’s _seven_ already. We’re gonna miss Hillel!”

“We’re gonna what?” Daniel looked at the clock. 6:55 PM – Oreet was right. Shit, Omer was going to chew them out for being late again. “Oh… _fish sticks_ , thanks for waking me up.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, straightening his wrinkled button-down shirt as he went, and stood up so fast that his head spun. 

“You dressed, honey?” he asked. He wasn’t, not properly, but at least his normal work uniform wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. Even Omer, who prided himself on knowing (most of) the services and remembering to put on his tallit more often than not, didn’t get on his case over khakis and a button-down. 

“Yeah. Look, I have my shoes on and everything.” Oreet twirled in place, making her purple plaid skirt swish out. Daniel briefly considered licking his palm and smoothing down her hair, but she hated it, and even thick and coarse as it was, it was lying relatively flat right now. 

“Good,” he said instead. “Where’s your brother?”

“Right here!” Oreet pointed at him and giggled, then shook her head. “You mean Noah? He’s in the kitchen.”

“And he’s not dressed properly, or I’ll eat my hat.” Daniel stepped into his shoes. With his tufty brown Mohawk and eyeliner thick enough that it could serve as house siding, Noah had long ago made Daniel give up hope that he’d ever make himself into a productive member of society. Never mind the jail record; the way he dressed would make the original Rav Hillel himself crawl into a hole and die. 

“No, but he got his other eyebrow pierced. It looks really cool,” Oreet said, grinning. “It’s all red and puffy, like a bee sting!”

“Oy gevalt,” Daniel moaned, slapped a hand over his eyes, and darted a quick glance towards the ceiling. He was holding the big guy responsible for this, benevolent or not. If God could force Noah the First to obey him about the ark, why couldn’t He at least tell Noah Reisberg to quit drawing stares on purpose? “Well, he knows where the peroxide is. God forbid he should die before I do, because now –“ 

“ – you’ll never get him in a Jewish cemetery and the _goyische_ ones won’t take him. I know,” Oreet interrupted. 

“That’s right, and don’t you get any ideas about facial piercings, young lady. Your brother’s going to turn me gray before I’m forty.” Daniel shrugged on the pumpkin-colored pullover he had draped over his desk chair and grabbed his wallet. “Ready?”

Oreet grabbed the hand he held out and went with him down to the kitchen, where Noah’s smirk and eyebrow as puffy as Oreet had reported it to be stood out like a stain on the yellow-and-white tiles. “Thought you were gonna sleep forever,” he said, half-tilted back on two chair legs. 

“Well, I didn’t,” Daniel snapped. “And take that thing out. It’s an eyesore and a tetanus infection waiting to happen.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “I’ll be sure to let you run my life when hell freezes over. C’mon, they’ll start without us.” He stood up, letting the chair legs hit the floor with a screech that made Daniel shudder, and held out his hand to Oreet. “Ready to eat, Ori?”

“Yup!” Oreet grabbed his fingers and started for the garage, holding a brother’s hand in each of hers. “My colored pencils are still in the car, right?” 

Daniel slid into the driver’s side, buckled up, and started the engine. “Right up front, sweetheart. Now let’s roll.”


	2. The Keepers of the Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo arrives, trailing clouds of grumpy.

It had been a fucking bitch of a day, if Theo did say so himself. Summer always took it out of him, what with the pressure to write intensifying in the absence of a full class load. He’d been warned again and again that that was the trade-off one made in the world of academia, but once again, he hadn’t listened to anyone but his own hard-headed self. If he could go back and punch his twenty-five-year-old self in the _kishkas_ , he would.  
For now, though, it seemed he’d have to settle for yelling at his nephews. “Uncle Theo!” eleven-year-old Philip shouted as Theo walked through the entranceway of Hillel’s social hall. “Hey, Uncle Theo! How’s it hangin’?”

“Yeah, how’s it hangin’?” Caleb piped up from his seat next to his brother. “OW! Mom, he kicked me!” He glared at Philip and did something under the table that made his brother yelp in reply. “See? When you kick me, I kick you back.”

“Mom, Caleb copied me and then he kicked me!” Philip complained. “Make him stop.”

On Caleb’s other side, Theo’s younger sister Dinah rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her dark curls. “Don’t make me have to separate you two.” She fixed her sons with the kind of look that had made Theo nearly pee himself even when he was twelve and she was only four, then gave Theo a (thankfully) much kinder look. “Hey, Theo. Didn’t know if you were gonna make it.”

“I took the evening off.” Theo sat down across from her at the all-purpose table, which was just as scratched and worn as the ones he remembered from Hebrew school. Ditto the chair, which dug into his ass and which he strongly suspected was made for fifth-graders. “I can do my grading tomorrow.”

“But it’s summer,” Caleb said. “Right, Dad?” He turned his face up to look at his father, who stopped drawing an impromptu tic-tac-toe board on his hand at the question. 

“Your uncle’s talking about summer classes,” Vince said. “What is it this year, Theo? Intro to Middle Eastern Studies?”

“Yeah. Gimme that, would you?” Theo held out his hand, palm-up, for the pen. Vince deposited it on top, and Theo immediately started drawing a historically-accurate hangman on the underside of his forearm. “It’s Middle Eastern Studies for this session, then I’m giving a senior seminar in August about Sumerian technology and warfare. Should be a more interesting group than the idiots I’m teaching now.” Around him, the buzz of various people entering and sitting down dissolved into an almost pleasant hum of scraping chairs and low conversation. 

Of course, just when Theo was starting to relax, that whole vibe was rudely interrupted by the sound of someone banging on a pot. “Shalom, everyone!” Omer Rabin called out from his usual position at the front of the room. As usual, his particular brand of fake Hebrew-English patois made Theo want to rip someone’s head off – how long had it been since the guy last _went_ to Israel, much less spoke Hebrew regularly? Hell, Omer’s younger brother was better-versed in the culture than he was, and he’d been born in America. “For those of you who weren’t at _ma’ariv_ -“ and here, Theo could swear Omer was looking straight at him – “Shabbat Shalom, and let’s get started with the _Kaddish_.”

“Okay,” Theo muttered back as Omer bustled about, getting everything ready. “Dee, are the leprechauns here yet?”

“Jeez, Uncle Theo, that’s racist!” Phil said. 

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Philly,” Theo shot back, ruffling his nephew’s hair across the table. “Besides, it’s only racist if I make some comment about them being Jewish, and…well. Anyway, what else am I supposed to call them? The Three Bs? Scions of the IRA? The Good, the Bad, and the Unintelligible?” 

“Theo!” Dinah exclaimed as Vince collapsed into laughter so extreme that he nearly fell off his chair. “That was uncalled for.” She raised an eyebrow in Vince’s general direction. “No matter how immature my husband wants to be about it.”

“Don’t touch my hair, Uncle Theo.”

“Once again, Phil, not the response I was going for,” Theo said. 

“So what?” Phil crossed his arms and gave Theo a pretty good imitation of one of his mom’s weaker glares. “You asked if they’re here. They’re here, okay? They got here a while ago.” He jerked his thumb backwards at a table behind them. 

Dinah clamped a hand over Phil’s shoulder. Theo narrowly avoided wincing. Experience with that particular move had taught him how much it hurt. “Philip Tuvia Adler-Derensky, you apologize to your uncle for interrupting and being rude.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Theo.” 

“No big deal. Let go of him, Dee – I think he’s learned his lesson.” 

“Fine,” Dinah said, releasing Phil’s arm. Caleb giggled uncontrollably. “Caley, it’s not nice to laugh at people’s pain.”

“Yeah, I know, but Phil isn’t people. Phil’s Phil,” Caleb replied. Theo blinked at him. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to have an existentialist – or at least some approximation of one – for a nephew. “That means I can be a jerk to him.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Theo said. “Vince, you know how much I hate to quote Family Guy –“

“You love it,” Vince interjected. 

“ – but _as I was saying_ , get off your ass and do some parenting.”

“Yeah, yeah. If my kids weren’t sitting right here, I’d be showing you the rude side of my hand right now.” Vince ruffled Caleb’s curls, making his younger son squeal. “Ready for dinner, buddy?” 

“Speaking of, what are we having?” Theo craned his neck and searched the tables for the Irishmen whom he termed ‘the leprechauns’, finding them a few rows back. “Hey, Boaz!” he called. “You know what we’re having?” 

“Search me,” Boaz Budin yelled back. “Oi, Benny!” He turned his head and gestured towards his brother, who was coming out of the entrance to the kitchen. “What’re we having?”

“Oh, it’s a treat today,” Benny said. As usual, with his apron and trusty red T-shirt on, he looked like a ginger-headed Santa Claus – only with more of a belly. Theo didn’t know a kid alive who didn’t like to bounce on it, including his incorrigible nephews. “We’re doing a kosher English dinner!”

“Conquerers’ food?” Boaz dramatically pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. “Oh, Benny, you’re breaking m’heart!”

“You say that now, but you’ll be eatin’ the spotted Dick like everyone else.” Benny dusted some nonexistent flour off his hands and sauntered back into the kitchen, presumably to put the finishing touches on some dish or other. He really was the best cook Theo had ever met, and that was saying a lot. 

“ _Va’y’khulu ha’shishi,_ ” Omer sang out, interrupting everyone’s conversation, “ _va’y’khulu ha’shama’im v’ha-aretz…_ ” 

“Finally,” Phil said, and tugged his father’s sleeve. “He took forever!”

“He’ll take forever just to finish one prayer, Philly. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.” Theo leaned across the table and smirked at his sister. “You know, the way he sings, I always think he’s trying to say ‘come here, Cthulhu’ instead of starting the Kaddish.”

“Oh my _God_ , Theo. We’re in public.” Dinah rested her chin on her hands. “Don’t make me have to muzzle you.”

Theo obligingly shut up for the remainder of the prayer, but he was just as relieved as Phil and Caleb were (judging by the fact that they had resumed kicking each other under the table) when Omer finished droning and pronounced the final “Amen,” the cue for everyone to raise their glasses of grape juice and/or wine and drink heartily. 

“Good,” Omer said, just as he always did – who was he complimenting, anyway? – and picked up his trusty pot and spoon, then shuffled over to the door. “All right, everyone who’s hungry, come and eat!” he shouted. He held the spoon high, then took a few hearty whacks at the pot with it. 

Dinah cringed. “He does realize that’s a Passover thing, doesn’t he?”

“Somehow, I don’t think you’ll ever change his mind about that,” Theo answered. 

“Come and eat!” Omer said one last time, lowering the spoon and turning around to go back to his position at the front of the room. “Come in!”

And then, much to everyone’s everlasting surprise, someone did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omer's prayer is the traditional (and long-winded) Hebrew prayer over wine, sung on the evening of the Sabbath. It's called the Kaddish - or Kiddush, if you're going for the Yiddish. 
> 
> Sounds weirdly like Khuzdul, doesn't it? ;)
> 
> Ma'ariv is the evening prayer service, and kishkas = nads.


	3. I Sought Him, But I Found Him Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The visitor makes himself comfortable. Too comfortable.

The newcomer forever earned himself the nickname “The Britiot” among some members of the Hillel contingent when he congenially slapped Gad Rabin’s back in line to the food and commented “I say, that’s an amazing beard!”

While the beard-wearer in question gaped at him, Gad’s nine-year-old son, Galil, poked his father's arm. “Dad, has this guy _ever_ seen a beard before?”

Gad shook his head. “Um. Okay…thanks?”

Theo watched with increasing glee from his table vantage point – he could always get his food later, but this was too good to miss – as the guy loaded a plate up with some of everything that Benny had made, got a chunk of challah, and then (oh, dear God, no) made his way over to the tables, sitting down next to Theo. 

“ _Hi_ ,” he said, shooting the man his best ‘I’m a Fucking History Professor and I Will Albrecht von Wallenstein Your Ass’ look. He wasn’t half bad-looking from this distance, especially since Theo could always be wowed by brown curls and a comfortable belly, but the way Phil and Caleb were cracking up right now made this the worst possible place for the new guy to sit. 

If there was one thing Theodor Derensky hated, it was being mocked. 

“Hello.” The man smiled at him. “Good to meet you. I’m Bill Baggins.” He bit into his challah, then closed his eyes and let out a sigh that Theo would have said was orgasmic under any other circumstance. “Good lord, that’s delicious!”

“Haven’t you ever had challah before?” Caleb asked. “What kind of synagogue did you go to?”

“Synagogue? Oh, I’m not Jewish.” Bill Baggins – heretofore to be called _Baggage_ in the sardonic privacy of Theo’s mind – shook his head and took another bite. “This is lovely, though, from what I’ve heard. Very accurate for an interactive museum.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Theo said. Dinah could get on his ass all she wanted for swearing in front of the kids, but this went beyond acceptable behavior and into LOLCats levels of ridiculous. 

Baggage blinked. “This isn’t an interactive museum? Oh…” His cheeks went bright pink. “Oh, bugger. Sorry. One of my patients told me – well. I suppose I shouldn’t trust a man who comes in with fireworks burns on his – well, that’s confidential.”

“Patients? You mean you’re a _doctor?_ ” Theo wasn’t about to be fooled by any fancy accent. Anyone who conferred a doctorate on this guy had, in his opinion, officially lost their fucking mind. “Jesus F. Lipschitz.”

“No, no,” Baggage said. “I’m a nurse. CNP. Er – just a moment.” He shrugged off his purple windbreaker, revealing noxiously green hospital scrubs. Across the table, Phil poked Caleb and whispered something that Theo could hear had to do either with aliens or American Dad. “I’ve got ID.” He unclipped a plastic card from the scrub top and held it up in front of Theo’s face. 

Apart from the typical mug-shot look that Theo knew all too well was a consequence of bad ID photos, Baggage didn’t look like a serial killer or anything…save for a really unfortunate choice in hair-care products, that is. When you were six-foot-plus and had hair down to your ass, you learned quickly what worked, and what resulted in a Jewfro of apocalyptic proportions. Thanks to a combination of living minutes from the Atlantic, various pieces of bad advice, and what Dinah called "being a stubborn asshole," Theo was possibly the world's foremost expert in dealing with curly hair.

“So what brings you to Hillel, Mr. Baggins?” Dinah asked. “Forgive my brother, by the way. He is _absolutely_ usually like this, and you shouldn’t pay him any attention.” She kicked Theo under the table in a move that would have gotten her sons screamed at if they tried it on him. “Theo, shut up and let the man eat.”

“Seriously,” Vince said. He held up a forkful of something indistinguishably English, shoved it into his mouth, and talked through a mouthful of mush. “Omer said ‘come in’, and he did. What doesn’t make sense about that?”

“Intellectual curiosity and hunger,” Baggage replied, obviously addressing Dinah’s question. The color hadn’t disappeared from his cheeks, and Theo didn’t blame him. “I’m starting to think that my patient was really taking the piss out of me – sorry, taking the Mickey.” He coughed. “This isn’t the first time I’ve treated him for similar problems.”

“Mom, he said piss!” Caleb exclaimed, tapping Dinah’s shoulder repeatedly. “ _Mom!_ ”

“’Piss’ isn’t a swear word, buddy,” Theo said. “Now if you _really_ want a swear word, you should watch me when I stub my toe. ‘Piss’ and ‘motherfucker’ and ‘ _ben zonah_ ’ are gonna be the least of it.” 

Dinah opened her mouth, probably to scold him, but Danny Reisberg stomped over from the next table before she could say one outraged word. “Theodor, do you mind keeping it clean? I’d like my sister to remain uncorrupted, thank you!” He put his hands on his hips. “So who’s our newcomer?” 

“His name’s Mr. Baggage!” Phil said. “He’s a nurse.”

“That’s _Baggins_ ,” Baggage said, sounding a little annoyed. Good. Theo was going to have to give Phil a big soda later for being on the same hilarious wavelength _or_ for just mishearing in the first place. “Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

Danny straightened up a little, not that it was noticeable or necessary with his radioactively orange sweater drawing the eye to the ugly, and honest-to-God _preened_. “I didn’t say. Daniel Reisberg, Esquire.”

“Esquire!” That seemed to impress Baggage. “Terribly fancy, that.”

“It’s just a J.D.,” Vince said, laughing. “C’mon, Danny, don’t try to make everything fancy. He’s a lawyer, Mr. Baggins.”

“Family law, mostly,” Danny continued, looking slightly deflated. Of course, he usually looked like a distinguished (and aging, thanks to Noah) professor, but the aforementioned deflation combined with his sweater made him look like a sagging inner tube – that or a silver-haired teddy bear. 

“Very impressive!” Baggage said, standing up and shaking Danny’s hand. “I’m a nurse practitioner at the Veterans’ Hospital.” Theo took the opportunity to discreetly ogle his ass. Not bad, but the scrubs were way too baggy. 

“We always need more of those.” Danny nodded and pointed at Theo’s table. “That’s Dinah Adler-Derensky, her husband Vince, and their sons, Phil and Caleb. And that’s her brother Theo Derensky, who –“ Danny lowered his voice and leaned in towards Bill, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “ – well, who’s the biggest flamer north of New York City.”

Theo could actually _feel_ his eyeballs shaking. That was going to be a headache later. “Daniel. I do not _flame_. The only time in my life that I’ve flamed was the day that idiot apprentice tried to stoke the forge at the Village.”

“As you say, Theo.” Danny winked and patted Baggage’s shoulder. “So you might want to take that into consideration.”

“I certainly couldn’t – oh, I say, who’s that?” Baggage froze in place, his eyes locked on the Budins’ table. Benny had finally left the kitchen, and was now digging into what looked to be a cake doughnut covered in chocolate mousse. “The bloke with the scar. I’m sure I’ve treated him!”

“Eh?” Danny turned his head in the same direction. “That’s Bram Budin. If you treated him, it was probably during one of his episodes.”

“He has them sometimes,” Caleb put in. “Mom? I really gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Go ahead, Caley,” Dinah said. Caleb nodded and ran off. “Yeah, as far as we can tell, Bram had some problems with the police back in Ireland. He got hit on the head hard enough that he only speaks Hebrew. I’d guess that his cousins understand…what would you say it is, Vince? A quarter of what he says?”

“Yep, sounds about right.” Vince took a drink of water. 

“Bram?” Baggage rubbed his chin. “That sounds…deceptively cuddly.”

“’Deceptively’ is right,” Danny said. “Although he doesn’t really go off that much. He’s usually pretty nice, if you can put up with him being incomprehensible.” He smoothed down the front of his sweater with his palms. “I’d really rather put up with him than with my brother, what with –“

Theo looked around to see why Danny - and most of the rest of the room - had stopped dead. As if to prove his brother right, Noah Reisberg had chosen that exact moment to drop his ratty jeans and show Dwight Feldman his naked, hairy ass. Officer Dwight Feldman, of the Lexington PD. And, formerly, of Mossad.

Never before had Theo wanted a bucket of popcorn so much in his life. This was going to be a _show_. 

“Good lord!” Baggage exclaimed, barely audible over the commotion that Noah’s ass was causing. “Does this happen every time?” He sat back down next to Theo and shoved another chunk of challah in his mouth, clearly of the same mind that Theo was on the matter. Good man. 

“Just when Noah’s drunk,” Theo answered, relishing Baggage’s discomfort. “It’s Defcon One over there.” He watched with delight as Danny simultaneously tried to cover Oreet’s eyes, scream at Noah, and tell Dwight that he’d pick Noah up from prison in the morning if necessary. 

It was then, of course, that Caleb came back and draped himself all over Dinah. “Mommy?” His regression to the baby name and suddenly _miserable_ tone of voice made Theo turn sharply to look at him. God, the kid looked like shit. “I threw up.”

“ _Dammit_.” Dinah looked guiltily at Phil. “Sorry – swear jar. Vince, get the car, would you? We’re going home.”

“On it,” Vince said, and got up. 

Phil shook his head. “That’s not a swear. Noah said it last week.” He was no longer laughing like a loon, as he had been doing for the past few minutes, but his face was red with suppressed laughter. Smart kid; Theo would have had to yell at him otherwise for adding to the whole clusterfuck. 

“Yeah, well,” Dinah muttered, shoving her cell phone and a stray piece of challah into her purse, “there’s a lot of bad stuff you can learn from Noah Reisberg. Case in point is right over there. Theo, do you mind taking Phil tonight?”

“ _Why?_ ” Phil whined. 

“Because what he has is likely very contagious,” Baggage said, “and I doubt your mother wants to deal with two vomiting boys all night.”

Loath as Theo was to award Baggage any points on intelligence, he had to admit that Phil’s whine dropped a few decibels after he said that. “Okay,” Phil said, “but can we get pizza?” 

“Kid, we can get whatever you want as long as it’s not illegal. I don’t want you turning into that.” Theo stood up, jerked a thumb in Noah Reisberg’s general direction, and fumbled his car keys out of his pocket. Dinah, busy corralling Caleb, took hers out, too. “Dee, lemme know if you need anything. Aspirin, Pedialyte, cyanide, whatever.”

“Yep. Come on, Caley, let’s get you outside.” Dinah put a hand on Caleb’s back and hustled him out the door, probably so he wouldn’t get a chance to throw up where some of the fussbudget-ier members of Hillel (read: Omer) could see. 

Theo figured this was probably his cue to get the one healthy nephew he had left to his house, where presumably he would stay that way. “All right, Phil, let’s get going. You, Baggage.”

“It’s _Baggins!_ ” Against all odds, the man was _still_ eating. 

“I don’t care what it is.” Theo pointed at him. “If you come back next week, you better not make any fucking comments about people’s beards. We’re proud Jews around here.”

Baggage gulped, although it was unclear whether that was from nerves or from having beef Wellington caught in his throat. “Er, duly noted.”

“And wear some better clothes next time. Those scrubs don’t do a thing for your ass.” On that note, feeling that he’d hit just the right combination of insult and innuendo, Theo hustled Phil out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mossad is pretty much the Israeli CIA. I imagine Dwight was very, very frightening in his role as their hired muscle.
> 
> 'Ben zonah' is Hebrew for 'son of a whore.'


	4. A Thorn Among the Lilies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the time Noah Reisberg mooned a cop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very sorry for the delay in updates. This is a Sushi chapter, and in traditional Sushi fashion, the last few months have been a cavalcade of allergens, bacteria, autoimmune fuckery-dickery, and the entire Helliday Season. Also, Seas came to visit for two weeks, and I was way more interested in cuddling and spoiling her than writing. (♥) But it eventually got done.
> 
> Don't worry. I'm letting Seas take the reins for a while. I only hope this chapter is pornful and angst-tastic enough to make up for the delay. :D

"Awww!" Noah watched Theo leave with Phil, even as Feldman cuffed his hands behind his back. "Come on, Theo! You're missin' the fun!"

"I've seen enough of your ass for one night, kid. Have fun with your prison sex!"

"I can do that." Noah grinned back over his shoulder at Feldman. "You gonna use your nightstick on me, Officer?"

" _Noah!_ " Danny attempted to cover Oreet's ears with his elbows and her eyes with his hands even as Feldman growled.

"What's prison sex?" Oreet said. "Is there kissing?"

Before Noah could answer, Feldman scruffed him. "Keep your mouth shut, Reisberg. You're in enough trouble."

Noah snorted as Feldman marched him out of the building. He called back over his shoulder, "Walk my dog for me, squirt! See ya tomorrow!"

" _Bye, Noah, I'll walk Trayf and put bows on his ears and bring him home some dessert---_ "

The door cut off Oreet's voice, and Noah took a deep breath of suburban Boston air. It had cooled off a little, what with the sun starting to set, and Noah twitched to wander off. A lot of strays came out at night--not just him--and he was pretty sure he could finally get close enough to that tabby behind the Gas'n'Go to look at her funny eye---

He realized Feldman hadn't read his Miranda rights. Noah looked back at him, and yelped when the bastard yanked his hair.

"Fuckin' pig! Police brutality! _Police brutality, Danny! I want my lawyer---_ "

"Just _shut up,_ Noah. Get in the fucking car."

Noah sneered as Feldman unlocked his Jeep--a real Jeep, military surplus or something. Apparently, it was great for camping. Not that Noah had much camping to look forward to. He was just about due for some judge to send him away for a long time. The thought left him with a pit in his stomach. Yeah, it was inevitable, and it was sure as hell better than being drugged up in another psych ward, but that didn't mean he wanted to be bottom bitch to some guy named---

"Wake up!"

Noah flinched at Feldman's shout in his ear, and realized Feldman was. . . .

"Why're you takin' the cuffs off?" Noah rubbed his wrists, keeping his arms close to himself. He sidestepped, and Feldman manhandled him into the car and slammed the door.

Every instinct born of five years in juvie and more on the street screamed for Noah to run.

"Hey, man." Noah held up his hands as Feldman climbed in and buckled both of them in. "That was just a joke back there. I dunno what's goin' on here, but just take me in, okay? I know there were kids around. It was a shithead thing to do. Okay? We cool?"

Feldman only glared and pulled out into traffic.

Noah huddled into himself. He didn't dare look away from Feldman, nor did he try to jet. His hand shook as he reached into the rattiest part of his mohawk and pulled out the three joints he'd tucked away for later and set them on the dash.

"Look, that's all I got on me. I'm handin' it over, see?" He rubbed his nose with his wrist, feeling more and more like a cornered rabbit every second, and he couldn't help but laugh. "All I wanna do is go look at this cat I've been checkin' on, then I'll. . . ."

Noah trailed off as his heart started slamming against the inside of his chest. Fighting to breathe, he wrapped both arms over his head and squeezed his eyes shut. A burst of air hit him from Feldman's window, and he yelped--but the window closed before he could beg for one of his joints to calm him the fuck down. And just like Feldman had thrown out his weed, he'd killed off any hope Noah had of seeing freedom for a long, long, long time.

"No more of that shit at Hillel," Feldman said, and Noah whimpered.

"I need those."

He flinched when Feldman patted his shoulder.

It took a couple of minutes for Noah to realize they were going the wrong way--back towards Concord, away from Feldman's cop shop. He wondered if Feldman might drop him off at home, maybe with a slap on the wrist. The blazing hot ball of hope that lodged in Noah's chest made his lungs hurt. But maybe, just maybe, this one time Ha'Shem had decided Noah deserved a break---

He thought he was going to puke up his dinner when they pulled into Feldman's driveway.

"Hey." Feldman put a hand on Noah's shoulder as the garage door lifted. "You're shakin' like a leaf, kid."

"Don't hurt me." Noah squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't even care if he sounded like Reety getting her flu shot. Anywhere was better than here.

"Get inside."

Noah nodded, and tasted bile in his throat at just how spineless he really was. His hands slipped as he tried to unbuckle his seat belt, and all he could see in his head was his father, Robert Noah Reisberg, Asshole of Assholes, drawing back to punch him yet again.

Even that nearly knocked him down in a wave of guilt as he got out of the Jeep and smelled house paint and gunpowder, sawdust and age. Sure, he'd taken a few hundred beatings, but it was nothing, _nothing_ compared to what Danny took in order to save Noah's pathetic ass.

The kitchen looked like it hadn't been redecorated since the '70s, all avocado and harvest gold. The whole ceiling glowed with long fluorescent bulbs, the nauseous reddish ones, and planted the seed of a headache in Noah's scalp. He rubbed his arm as Feldman opened the fridge.

"What're you gonna do to me?" Noah said, staring at the yellowed tile floor to keep away from the lights. He jumped when Feldman thrust a beer into his hand.

"Apart from save your ass from a sex offender conviction?" Feldman opened his own bottle, and Noah realized the bottles weren't screw-top. "It was either cuff ya and walk you out, or let Omer call the guys on duty. Want me to open that?"

Noah nodded, and flinched when Feldman pulled the cap off, again, with his naked hand. Feldman handed it back, and Noah stared at the bottle, wondering if he was going to wake up and be twelve again, bruised everywhere it didn't show and too fucking scared to call the cops. (After that shit, spending thirteen to eighteen in juvie psych was a Goddamn cake walk.)

"Noah?" Feldman snapped his fingers a few times, and Noah looked up. "You drinkin' that or makin' friends?"

So Noah did the only thing he could and chugged the whole thing.

Feldman narrowed his eyes. "You wanna go sit down? This isn't Theo's place, so don't expect top-of-the-line everything."

Noah nodded and hurried away from Feldman and his horrible kitchen. Around a corner, he found the living room, which seemed okay enough. TV, PlayStation, big couch for a big scary man. Lots of books, which was weird. Noah had never pictured Feldman with any kind of book, unless he was throwing it at someone--including quite a few of Noah's buds from his time in juvie, and after Danny kicked him out for toking in his room.

He spent a couple of minutes looking through the bookshelves. It helped him get his breath. Lots of thrillers, spy stuff, military stuff. A wall of science fiction--the hard kind, written by people with PhD's in rocket science. A bunch of T. D. Darrens: weirdly detailed historical novels with really awesome sex. Everyone at Hillel seemed to read the guy's stuff, though Theo called him a "best-seller hack." Noah figured his copies of the guy's books had historical corrections all over the margins.

"Or you can read something. That's cool, too."

Noah jumped and flattened his back against a bookcase. Feldman, standing in the doorway, lifted an eyebrow. He held a six-pack and a couple of bags of chips. Noah gulped and rubbed his eyes, so the back of his hand came back smeared with black eyeliner.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Feldman didn't even look at Noah as he flopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. "Anything you wanna watch?"

Noah gripped the shelf behind him like he could climb it all the way to the clouds. "Why am I here?"

Feldman took a long drink of beer. "I didn't want you ending up in prison for trying to get my attention like some dumb kid. Believe me, you've had it."

"Whaddya mean, attention?"

Feldman glanced at Noah, then turned back to the TV. "I'd have to be brain-damaged not to notice you mentally undressing me for, what, nearly three years now? Even Bram's noticed, and he _is_ brain-damaged."

"I haven't done anything to you." Noah bit his bottom lip. He knew damn well he'd spent every Friday night since he joined Hillel eyefucking Feldman, but eyefucking and being dragged to the guy's house weren't in the same ballpark. Fuck, they weren't even the same game.

"Yeah, well, you're full of shit. I think you showed me your ass 'cause you want me to get up in there."

Noah snorted and pulled a paperback off the shelf behind him so he'd have something to do with his hands. "So what? I sit down, you're all over me like schmaltz on Benny's cooking?"

"I'm not gonna touch you unless you touch me first. I've been around enough scared kids to know better." Feldman cracked another beer and held it out. "And I really did bring you here to keep you away from the guys on duty."

For what seemed like a long time, Noah watched Feldman. Feldman didn't move, only looked at him like he was one of the dogs--starved, beaten, with collars grown into their necks--that Noah rescued from yards in the darkest time of night.

Except Noah wasn't desperate for affection. He wasn't about to whine and lick Feldman's hand even as he flinched from a blow that might or might not come. Whatever he might be, whatever he'd done for money on the street, he wasn't about to roll over for any hand that scratched his ears instead of kicking him.

He set the book back on a shelf, and slunk forward to snatch his beer and sit as far from Feldman as he could. Feldman only picked up the remote and flipped through channels until he found _Dead-Alive_ , then tossed the remote in the middle of the couch.

For a long time, Feldman watched and laughed and ate chips. Noah kept looking back and forth between the TV and Feldman. Even the goriest movie ever made wasn't enough to let him forget where he was. He dropped his attention to his full beer, and cringed when Feldman laughed at the top of his lungs.

"I thought that guy looked familiar." He pointed to one of the punks in the graveyard scene, then grinned at Noah. "Wash off the eyeliner, and you'd be a dead ringer."

Noah lifted an eyebrow, but took a good look. "Oh, fuck off. You need to get your eyes checked."

"I call 'em like I see 'em." Feldman held out his open bag of kettle chips. "Want some?"

Noah rolled his eyes, but stuffed his hand in the bag and grab a handful. Mouth full, he said, "If I look like that guy, you look like the naked guy in the chair in _Jekyll_. Y'know, if he was Jewish. And lost a fight with a meat grinder."

"Naked guy in a chair, huh?"

Noah threw some chips at Feldman. "Shut up."

The rest of the movie went a little faster than Noah expected. As it turned out, Feldman was pretty cool to watch gallons and gallons of blood with. Noah nearly shot beer out his nose when the guy started going, "Bow chikka bow bow," during the zombie sex scene, and they fucking _high fived_ over the lawnmower. He didn't even get pissed off when Noah called him a pig for making him spill beer down his shirt laughing.

"I can put something else on," Feldman said over the credits.

Noah wanted to say yes--he _really_ wanted to say yes. But he knew Feldman's type: all buddy-buddy 'til the next time your name turned up on a docket. He found Feldman watching him. His eyes were a lot bluer than they looked from the other side of Hillel. And his beard had a little more gray than he'd assumed. It looked good on him. Really good. Really, really fucking good. Which was saying something.

Noah, who prided himself on being an even bigger slut than Theo (if only because he wasn't picky about his partners having a dick), reminded himself: don't fuck cops. His buds had tried it before, and they ended up in a cell as usual, just labeled pigfuckers. It was a good way to get shivved.

"I gotta go."

Feldman lifted his eyebrows. "Wanna ride?"

Noah shook his head and hurried to neck back the last of his beer, only his third of the night--not counting the Goddamn syrupy Manischewitz Omer insisted on serving at Hillel.

Still, Feldman walked him to the door. "Pet that dumpster kitty for me."

Noah smiled, and left before he could second guess himself.

It felt a little weird, walking away from Feldman's place. "Goddamn cop," he muttered, hands in his jeans pockets. "You lookin' to get knifed?"

From the secret pocket he'd sewn inside the waist of his jeans, he pulled out his butterfly knife and whipped it around. It had saved his ass a few times in sketchy parts of town, and once at a rave when he'd hit on the wrong guy. Mostly, though, he used it to saw through leashes and collars, or painful clumps of fur, or plastic bags, like the one he'd found Trayf in when the little guy was just a puppy.

If he got picked up with the fucking thing again, he'd probably be away from home for five years, maybe more. Oreet would be, fuck, at least fifteen by the time he got back, and hopefully not getting it on with some asshole like Ma did. Danny would be disappointed; he'd told Noah a hundred times to throw it away, give it to Theo, _something._ But it kept him safe, and it had saved a lot of animals who were just as fucked up as he was.

Feldman would probably be pretty pissed if he knew about it.

Noah stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. It was about ten o'clock, he guessed. Oreet no doubt had a book with her in bed. Danny was probably online, maybe chatting with someone in his parenting support group. Or his other support group. Noah shivered in the warm June night.

He should have just punched Danny in the face and let Ma do her thing with _him._ Would've let Danny escape, and Noah had always been the disposable one. Their dad made sure everyone knew it, especially Noah.

He should've stuck around Feldman's. It felt weird that he hadn't gotten an uncomfortable hug. Or a goodnight kiss.

Tucking his knife back into its pocket, Noah turned around and dragged his feet back the way he'd come. He was no pigfucker, but there was no shame in stealing a little peck.

His mouth went dry as soon as he knocked. In fact, if the shrubs in front of Feldman's place hadn't been covered in inch-long thorns, Noah would have dived for cover and congratulated himself on a prank well done. His feet refused to move, and when Feldman opened the door--stripped out of his button-up from Hillel and wearing a T-shirt that left the most dangerous details to Noah's imagination--all Noah could do was stand there for a moment and work his mouth. Feldman cocked an eyebrow.

"When you were with Mossad." Noah's palms felt damp, and he stuck his hands back in his pockets. "Did. . . did you kick ass for the Lord?"

Feldman lifted both eyebrows and chuckled, almost a real laugh. "No, Israel."

"Oh."

"You come all the way back to ask me that? I thought _Boaz_ was a pop culture junkie."

Noah shrugged. It had been a stupid idea, and now he'd made it even worse. Feldman folded his arms.

"You waiting for a goodnight kiss or something?"

"What if I am? You gonna take me in, piggy?"

"Nope." Feldman leaned against the doorframe. "You gotta make the first move, though."

"The fuck would you even want me to? You're just gonna harass me about something next week."

To Noah's wary surprise, Feldman looked at the ground. "Come on, Reisberg. You're smarter than those shitheads you hang out with. Gentler, kinder, funnier. Should I go on?"

Noah managed not to back away. "You wanna fuck me?"

"Yeah. But only if you do, too."

"You wanna fuck every armed criminal that comes to your house?" Noah pulled out his knife and flipped it open.

Feldman held out his hand.

Noah watched him. Feldman watched him in return. There wasn't a Goddamn thing to stop him hauling Noah in on assault charges. One of Noah's buds was in Cedar Junction for assaulting a cop, and he only managed to smash up the chick's car with a brick. A knife? At the door to Casa Bacon?

Feldman held his hand steady, palm up, like he was offering something.

Noah closed his knife, and dropped it in Feldman's hand.

"You call this a balisong? Whatever you paid, you got ripped off." Feldman looked the knife over, then tucked it in his back pocket. "You wanna come in?"

Noah shook his head. "Uh. See you next Friday, I guess."

"Yeah. See you then."

Goddamnit, Goddamnit, Goddamnit, he was chickening out. One kiss goodnight, that's all Noah wanted, so what happened? He handed over his knife and. . . .

Feldman caught the doorframe when Noah took his face and kissed him. Noah pulled back, his lips damp and his heart pounding for more, and would have laughed at Feldman's stupid stare if he wasn't determined to run the three blocks home and jack off like a teenager.

He caught Feldman around the neck when the man kissed him, a long, slow, sweet kiss that grew a little deeper every time Noah thought he'd caught his breath. It finally broke, and Noah stared up at him, balanced on his toes, his ancient sneakers threatening to slip on the tiled step.

"Was-was that goodnight?" he said, gazing into Feldman's dilated eyes.

"Do you want it to be?"

Feldman's husky voice sent a quiver through Noah, and he shook his head. So Feldman kissed him again, and Noah returned it while Feldman picked him up by the waist and shut the door. Noah found himself pressed against it. He dug his nails into Feldman's back and shoulder, doing all he could to not just rub off as Feldman kissed his neck, heavy brown beard thick and coarse. He squeezed Noah's ass. Noah whined.

"Couch or bed?" he whispered, and Feldman hoisted him up so Noah could wrap both legs around his waist, and carried him down the hall to the most boring bedroom Noah had ever seen.

"You get your decorating tips from Cheap Larry's By-the-Hour?" he said as he looked around at the white walls and brown carpet and beige bedspread and curtains. He yelped when Feldman threw him on the bed.

"Mind your manners," Feldman said as he pulled off his T-shirt.

Noah usually would've argued that lack of taste was ruder than calling someone on it, but he bit his bottom lip and paid attention to Feldman's abs and chest and, _Goddamn,_ his shoulders. He gripped the ugly bedspread beneath him, hands itching to explore the graying hair on Feldman's front, and the thick, dark trail running into his jeans. While Theo transcended the human-Sasquatch divide (as Noah had been horrified to learn the first time they hooked up), Feldman was damn near what Noah whacked off to when he didn't have a girl in mind.

Feldman smirked and put his (dear _God_ ) arms out. "You like the view, then."

"Uh-huh." Noah was pretty sure he sounded like an idiot, but it seemed minor next to leaning back on his elbows, watching his favorite cheesecake in the flesh.

When Feldman touched him to strip him of his shirt, Noah screamed like a little girl.

"Hey, hey!" Feldman held up his hands. "I'm not gonna hurt you, Noah. The hell was that?"

"Uh. Sorry." Noah pulled his knees to his chest. "I thought you were just gonna stand there, I think."

"The hell would I do that? It kills the point."

Noah shrugged. He looked up to see Feldman watching him. Feldman held out a hand for a moment, then cupped Noah's face. Noah held as still as he could. Feldman only stroked his eyebrow.

"You ever consider braiding these things?"

Noah laughed. "I tried once. Rather let 'em dread, but they won't."

Feldman snorted, then kissed Noah's eyebrows. It was a weird sensation. And it let Feldman grab the hem of Noah's T-shirt before Noah had a chance to jump.

"You don't really seem like someone who'd do well in an anarchic state," Feldman said as he pulled it over Noah's head. He pushed him back on the bed, and Noah couldn't help but moan when Feldman pinned him by the shoulders. Feldman cocked an eyebrow. "Kinky."

"You have no idea."

Noah quivered all over when Feldman growled and ran both hands down his chest. He squeezed Noah's nipples, and Noah arched into it, gasping.

"Surprised these aren't pierced," Feldman said.

"Tried once. Oh, _fuck! Harder!_ " Noah moaned when Feldman twisted his grip back and forth. He ran his thumbs over Feldman's abs, and could have stayed there for a long time if he hadn't let them drift to his jeans. "Please?"

Feldman growled and kissed him. Noah kissed back, teeth and tongue as much as lips, and whimpered in response to Feldman's growls and low grunts. Feldman slid his fingers through Noah's chest hair and tugged, and Noah wrapped both legs around him and yanked them together.

"The fuck you waiting for?" Feldman said against Noah's mouth. Noah took the hint and unbuttoned Feldman's fly, though he stopped there. A nervous little voice inside him insisted he was about to fuck a pig, and pigfuckers never ended well.

"Hey," Feldman said after most of a minute. He drew back and frowned, and felt Noah's forehead. "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'."

"Don't gimme that shit. What's wrong?"

Ryan. Nathan. Ismael. Wayne. DeLyon. Pigfuckers all. Shanked in some cell or other and left to bleed. Noah'd sent condolence cards to Nathan and DeLyon's parents, even though they'd never met, and got emails back both times, their parents shocked that anyone who'd known their sons would give enough of a shit to think of them.

Noah looked at Feldman. "You know what happens to pigfuckers?"

He cringed on instinct. Instead of yelling or slapping him or whatever, though, Feldman just looked sad. Noah went still when Feldman hugged him.

"Do I gotta keep you on a leash? You're not goin' back."

"The fuck do you know? And nothin's keeping me out of psych hell. Fuck me up on tranqs for three days, then put me on meds they keep insisting work just fine, but I can't remember my Goddamn name. Maybe that's how they know it's working."

Noah wrinkled his nose. He shouldn't have said anything about the nuthouse. Bad enough to be a criminal without being a fucking psycho.

Feldman looked pained, and lowered his voice. "Who the hell convinced you you're worthless?"

Noah lifted an eyebrow. "Robert Reisberg."

Feldman grunted. "Your father was a piece of work. Suicide by cop, my ass."

"His name was Robert Noah. I'm Noah Robert."

Feldman drew back and stared. His fingers tightened on Noah's shoulders, though he looked more or less as vaguely pissed off as he ever did.

"What the fuck," he finally said. "Why didn't he just put a sign on your crib that said, 'Angel of Death, stop here'?"

Noah shrugged. Goddamn naming traditions. Feldman took his chin and kissed him, then stripped out of the rest of his clothes and pushed Noah back against the pillows and stretched out on top of him, strong and broad and heavy, and hard and safe all over.

"You're not a pigfucker," Feldman said against his mouth. "You're just fucking me."

"Feldman---"

" _Dwight._ "

"Dwight---"

"Just go with it, okay?"

Noah closed his eyes. He couldn't ignore the insistence of Feldman's--Dwight's?--lips on his, or the soft rasp of his beard and the scratch of the trimmed ends of his mustache. All ten of Noah's fingertips rested against Dwight's sides. The muscle there moved with harsh breaths and both of their efforts to press closer. Noah slid his fingers around to Dwight's back, and tightened both his arms when Dwight whimpered for more.

"I'm cool with whatever," Noah said in his ear, and Dwight looked into his eyes.

"Whatever whatever?"

"Yeah. Just, like, warn me if you're gonna cut me. Anything like that."

He winced inside when Dwight just looked sad. Dwight kissed Noah and sat up.

"Get your clothes off and turn over. I'll be right back."

Noah only wondered for a second what he'd gotten himself into before he stripped down and got on his stomach. Well, Dwight was a nice enough guy. And, with luck, Noah'd get a good, hard fuck out of it, too.

He was still getting settled when Dwight came back with a roll of plastic wrap.

"You know, foil does a better job of preserving your victims against freezerburn," Noah said.

"Shut up." Dwight got on his hands and knees next to Noah and zerberted the shaved part of his head. Noah yelped.

"It's not funny!" He rubbed his tingling scalp while Dwight laughed. "Dick!"

"That's _Officer_ Dick, Reisberg."

Noah flinched. Dwight broke off laughing with a forced cough. He sat back on his knees and opened a drawer on the Ikea-standard bedside table.

"Sorry, Noah." He poked through the drawer with one hand and rubbed Noah's back with the other, which helped more than Noah expected. "Just get comfy, okay?"

Noah watched for a few moments as Dwight--Officer Dwight--considered a couple of bottles of lube, and finally turned his head to face the windows. They made him feel a little better. He could sneak out later and maybe pretend nothing had ever happened. There came the crinkle of condom wrappers, and Noah closed his eyes and smiled. A good, hard fuck fixed most things for a little while.

Dwight nudged Noah's legs apart. Noah rubbed his face against the pillowcase, which smelled like it had been slept on for three or four nights, as Dwight knelt between his knees and kneaded Noah's ass.

"Doesn't anybody feed you?" Dwight reached down and pinched Noah's hipbone.

"Yeah. Local jail's got great powdered eggs."

Dwight grunted, and to Noah's surprise kissed the small of his back. "I'll make you some real ones in the morning, if you wanna stick around."

Noah looked back over his shoulder. "The hell?"

Dwight looked unimpressed. "I didn't say you have to."

"I. . . people don't usually. . . ." Noah trailed off and buried his face in the pillow again. Smooth. No wonder he always had Cheerios in strawberry milk with Oreet.

He jumped when Dwight kissed his ass. While he'd certainly spent his share of time imagining cops and CO's doing that very thing, none of them ever gave him a little nuzzle with it in his imagination--or ran both hands up his back 'til he groaned. A boulder of tension seemed to evaporate from his shoulder blades, and he shivered as Dwight cupped his sides and drew both hands to his hips, still kissing here and there on both cheeks.

"Oh, _God,_ " Noah said.

"Hmph. If you don't keep saying that, I'm losing my touch."

"Don't flatter yourself, donut breath."

"Do I need to put the cuffs on you?"

Noah pressed back for more. Dwight's growling voice made his skin tingle, and for the first time ever, the thought of a cop putting him in cuffs made him writhe and spread his legs wider. He yelped when Dwight pinned his wrists on the pillow, but it broke to a whimper.

"Huh." Dwight licked the back of Noah's neck, and Noah moaned. "Gonna have to remember that."

Noah whimpered until he trembled all over as Dwight licked all the way down his spine and resumed squeezing and kissing his ass. Here and there, he tugged a hair or two with his teeth and made Noah suck air through his teeth. Noah dug his fingers into the bed beneath his pillow when Dwight spread his cheeks.

"Doesn't that look inviting?" Dwight chuckled, and Noah pictured him grinning like he had a whole table full of desserts. Noah braced himself for a couple of fingers, or maybe just his dick. It was hard to tell what guys were into sometimes.

"Hey." Dwight rubbed Noah's lower back. "Relax. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"I don't mind."

Dwight sighed and rubbed his thumbs at the base of Noah's spine. "How old're you again? Twenty-four-ish?"

"Twenty-six." Noah nearly twisted away when Dwight worked both hands under his stomach. "Hey! The fuck you doin'?"

Dwight rested his bald head just below the nape of Noah's neck. His hands felt monstrous and warm, pressed flat again the most vulnerable part of Noah's body. Noah'd seen a couple of people with knife wounds in the gut, one dead, one alive. His abs, what there was of them, jerked and pulled, trying to both protect him and push away the intruder.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, Noah." Dwight spoke at little more than a whisper, like Noah did when he found a stray with a hurt paw or broken tail. "If you still want this, say something. Unless you just want a dick up your ass. I don't play that game."

Noah turned to stare. "I'm not your boyfriend."

"Good. Fuckin' overgrown punk." Dwight rubbed Noah's belly. "I expect a little affection. You'd better be prepared to put up with some, too. I don't do this with just anyone."

"You callin' me a slut?"

"No."

Noah blinked. "Why not?"

Dwight leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Noah went still--Dwight should'a kicked him out as soon as he started getting difficult. He wondered just how much of his shit Dwight was willing to put up with to get laid.

"Go on," Noah said after a few quiet moments, and put his head on his folded arms. Dwight kissed his neck, and Noah tilted his head to give him more skin.

"Mm, that's nice," Dwight said. He kissed and sucked Noah's neck all along his pulse. Noah closed his eyes. He moaned when Dwight bit him.

"You like that, huh?"

"Yeah. Do it again?"

Dwight did, a few times, and even nipped his earlobe around its plug. Noah yelped when Dwight pinched his nipple.

"It's okay! It's okay. I'm not---"

"You surprised me. Fuck, _squeeze._ "

Dwight did until Noah though his nipple would pop off. Noah tipped his head back, panting, and whimpered when Dwight bit his shoulder hard enough to burn.

"Please. . . ," Noah whispered.

"Want me to bite you again?"

Noah shook his head and pressed back with his ass. Dwight's grip on him tightened, so he did it again.

"What do you like?" Noah said, looking back over his shoulder.

"Everything I've seen so far." Dwight pinched both his nipples and sat back, dragging both hands over Noah's skin. "Anything you don't like? Besides knives, which I'm not into."

Noah shrugged. He could get into or put up with pretty much anything, and in a worst case scenario, he could always whine until he got a blowjob. He gasped when Dwight bit his asscheek.

"Gimme a sec," Dwight said against the bite marks, and drew away. Noah whimpered, and yelped when Dwight smacked his ass. "I said gimme a sec."

"Gimme a spanking!"

"You probably deserve one." Dwight landed another hot blow that left Noah clinging to the bed and panting for more. He held on there, listening as Dwight ripped off a piece of plastic wrap.

"Not on my face," Noah whispered. "Please. I don't like it."

"That just means you don't have a death wish."

"Dad woke me up with pillows on my face."

The rustle of plastic paused, and Dwight rested his hand on the small of Noah's back.

"Noah, I promise I'll never deliberately do anything like that to you. Swear on Ha'Shem."

Noah nodded. Something about Dwight's voice felt trustworthy. Dwight squeezed his stinging ass until Noah moaned, then rubbed. . . uh. . . .

"Are you putting Saran Wrap on my ass?"

"Yep." Dwight wiggled it around with a finger, and Noah dug his fingers into the bed as it slipped on a warm layer of lube. Before he recovered enough to loosen his grip, Dwight spread his cheeks, and touched him again. But not with his finger. Or his dick.

"Oh, fuck!" Noah bared his teeth. Nobody'd ever rimmed him before, and the wicked tickle combined with the stretch of Dwight pulling his cheeks apart--never mind the knowledge of _just what was going on_ \--had him jamming his dick against the bed.

"Hey, careful." Dwight worked his slippery hand under Noah and closed it around his dick. "One of us might want to use that later."

"Fuck, you're gonna make me come!" With touch, with words, with pure _kindness_. Noah looked back, and got a grin that made him bite his lip and break out into even more of a sweat. Dwight ducked his head, and Noah keened at the novel pressure of a bearded chin sliding up and down his crack on a thin layer of lubed plastic. "Don't stop!"

In the ugly bedside lamp's yellowish light, Dwight looked feral, and more olive-skinned than he really was. He pressed his chin behind Noah's balls and stuck his tongue out for more teasing. Noah clamped both arms over his head and panted. He became more and more aware of his embarrassing moans--noises a virgin would make--but he couldn't help it. Dwight had a tongue like a seasoned lesbian (as Noah could verify, thanks to a good rave and some truly sick E).

"Stop or I'll come!" Noah said before he bit his pillow and willed himself not to hump the bed--not that his body listened. Dwight, pig bastard, just pulled Noah's cheeks wider and wiggled his tongue from side to side.

"Fucker!" was the last thing Noah got out before he set to grinding against the ugly bedspread and focusing on Dwight's chin against his taint and tongue working against his freshness-wrapped ass.

He came, his whole body turning electric and thrusting back on Dwight's tongue. The pillow between his teeth felt like shitty polyester blend, but, oh, fuck, it was fleeting, and Dwight didn't stop. He kept licking, and Noah kept fucking back, zings shooting through his torso and his dick still trying to squirt while his fingers and toes went weak. Noah ground against his mouth when his dick got too sensitive to go on, and he had the fleeting thought that this was what women got when he went down on them.

"Shit, keep goin'," he whispered when Dwight kissed his ass--God, all the times--and wadded up the plastic wrap.

"Yeah, and kill ya?" Dwight rubbed Noah's lower back, then crawled to the side of the bed and reached down to fumble somewhere until he brought up a bottle of scotch. He rubbed a palmful over his lips, then swished some around his mouth and swallowed, before he came back and pulled Noah to his chest, wet spot and all.

"The fuck you doin'?" Noah drew lazy patterns along Dwight's collarbone with his nose. "You're s'posed to fuck me and kick me out."

"Why'd I wanna do that?" Dwight lifted Noah's face with a knuckle under his chin. Noah whimpered against his lips and tongue. The only thing demanding about it, though, was Dwight's hard-on against his thigh.

"You wanna fuck me?" Noah said against Dwight's lips, an arm around his neck.

"Yeah. Thought you'd wanna get some rest, though."

"But you got a---"

"I'm a big boy. I can wait."

#

Noah jerked awake. A haze of sweat clothed his naked body, and the air stank of semen. Oh, God, where was he? Why was he lying on a cheap bedspread? And how much money was waiting for him on the nightstand?

Not again. Not again, not again, not again. He hadn't done this shit in _years._

A mumble caught his panic, and he froze when a large man slung a muscular arm over him. He struggled to remember where he left his pants, and thus his knife, and took the man's wrist to ease him off---

"Noah? Y'kay?"

Noah recognized Feldman's voice--Dwight's voice--through his sleepy slurring, and hugged himself. The dim room looked like a suburban version of an hourly motel, where everything could be washed, or would burn like a tire fire with one misplaced cigarette. Mother _fucker._ Dwight had no idea how close he'd come to a dislocated elbow.

Noah slid free. Dwight let him, but said, awake this time, "What's wrong?"

"Bad dream."

"You wanna cuddle?"

Noah went still. Hell, just hearing Dwight "I Am The Law" Feldman say the word "cuddle" was enough to stop him. He turned over to look at Dwight, who watched him in the gray light breaking over the top of the curtains. If Noah still believed anyone could give a shit, he'd think Dwight was worried about him.

"The hell is wrong with you, dude?" Noah leaned up on his elbow and scratched his head so he wouldn't do something stupid, like take Dwight's hand or snuggle up. "You've seen my rap sheet, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then what am I doin' here?"

Dwight rolled on his back and folded his hands on his chest. "Eh. You're cute and funny, and you're kind of a goofy asshole. I'm not attracted to a lot of people. Figured it was worth a shot."

Noah stared, his lip curling in a sneer. A lot of things he could say went through his head, including, "This is the only way you can get laid?" and, "Can I have a hug?" He finally lowered his head--and caught a glimpse of the alarm clock from the corner of his eye.

"Shit!" When did it get to be three thirty in the morning? Noah crawled down the bed and started groping in the dark for his clothes. He cringed from the bedside lamp's glare.

"Hey! Hey." Dwight sat up and put out a hand as Noah pulled on his jeans. "It's okay. I'm not tryin' to scare---"

"I gotta walk Trayf before he shits on the floor." Noah looked at Dwight, and grabbed his shirt. "Danny's gonna give him away if he does it again---"

"Danny's all sound and fury."

"Bullshit. It's not your fucking dog---"

"Oreet says Trayf's a good boy. If Danny really goes through with it, how 'bout I take him? You can even take care of him for me, no strings attached."

Noah peered through the neck of his T-shirt, his arms caught over his head. Dwight only watched him, sitting on the edge of the bed with a pillow in his lap. Noah remembered himself and yanked his shirt down.

"Yeah, maybe." As much as he had no intentions of giving Trayf to anyone, much less Dwight Feldman, it warmed him inside to hear it, like eating too much vindaloo. Which usually meant he was gonna be sick. He grabbed his sneakers.

"You comin' back later?" Dwight said.

Noah looked back, ready to say no. It died on his tongue at Dwight's hopeful stare and restless fingers. He watched Dwight tap his knee for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out what was going on.

"You lookin' to get laid?"

"Wouldn't say no. I was kinda hoping to take you to breakfast, though. Unless you wanna cook. I'd make you those eggs, but I only know how to fry 'em brown and crunchy."

Noah wrinkled his nose. "How the hell have you managed to live alone?"

"Microwave lasagna and frozen pizza."

"Ew." If there was one thing his life had done right, it'd taught Noah how to cook. "What if I wanna stay home and fix myself an omelet with gruyère or some fancy shit like that?"

Dwight closed his eyes. "Oh, Jesus, that sounds good." He laughed. "Throw in some spinach and bacon?"

"That's gotta be the trayf-est thing I've ever heard anyone say. On Shabbat, too!"

"Never expected you to keep kosher."

"Pfft." Noah put his shoes on without tying them. "Later, oinky."

At home, Noah disabled the security system from outside--a little hack Danny still hadn't caught onto--and crept upstairs to his room. He found the usual rumpled bed and lingering sweet, skunky hint of weed smoked while leaning out his window, but no sign of Trayf, which meant he could only be one other place.

Indeed, when Noah peeked into Oreet's room, Trayf lifted his head from where it rested on her blanketed foot. He thumped his tail against the mattress, but stayed where he was. Really, he was her dog--she'd even named him. ("Are dogs kosher?" Danny said when Noah first brought Trayf home, and Oreet jumped up and down, shouting, "No, he's trayf!") Noah sat on the corner of the bed so as not to disturb them, and scratched Trayf's head around the blue bows tied to his ears.

"You need to go out, funny boy? Yeah, you need to go out," he said when Trayf grinned, front teeth and all, like the dork of a dog he was.

"Noah?" Oreet rubbed her eyes. Noah caught her as she lunged down the bed to hug him. "You busted out of the joint! We need to get you to a safe house."

"Wasn't in jail, squirt." Noah squeezed her, and it felt both right and wrong. "Feldman just gave me a lecture on not flashin' people. It was a stupid thing to do."

"Yeah. I don't want you locked up again." She sat on the bed in front of him. "How long a lecture did you get?"

"Not long. We ended up watching a movie. I fell asleep on his couch."

"Oh. 'Cause you smell like you do after you go on a date---"

"I gotta walk Trayf. Go to bed."

Oreet looked solemn. "I think you should go on another date with Officer Feldman. He's nice, and he laughs a lot when he doesn't have to be scary." She rested her chin in her hand. "He might make you less sad."

"Who says I'm anything?"

Oreet fell quiet, and so did Noah. Trayf rested his chin on Noah's knee and flopped his tail on the My Little Pony sheets. Oreet had a million of the things, though her favorite (and Danny's least favorite) was the one Noah had painted up in fishnets and eyeliner. She might turn out cool yet---

"Danny says that when you go away for more than a couple of days, you're usually in a hospital."

That. Well, she was gonna learn sometime. "Oh. Yeah. Your brother's crazy, squirt. You know Dwight Feldman's not some cure-all knight in shining armor, right?"

"Yeah. But he doesn't suck."

Noah bit his lip before he could correct her and completely destroy her innocence (though Danny had kept her a five-year-old for nearly six years now, and it was about time to destroy some of it). Besides, how the hell was a kid her age supposed to understand the difference between shitty meds that turned his brain to wet cotton, and a joint or some scammed Oxycodone? If he hooked up with a cop, he might as well take another knife to his wrists. Between the shitbags they'd gotten for parents, and Danny and the plank up his ass, the last thing Noah wanted to do was leave Oreet on her own.

"I gotta take Trayf out," he said as he hugged her. She always hugged back, and as usual, it was one of the few things that made him smile without any effort. "Go to sleep, kiddo. I'll leave you the Cocoa Puffs."

" _Yay!_ "

Noah winced at the shriek in his ear, then tucked her in. They'd only really known each other a little under three years--and she would _never_ know what he spent the previous few years doing--but she was already the best person Noah knew. He kissed her forehead, then smudged her with eyeliner to make her giggle, and took Trayf to the backyard to run around for a while.

While Trayf trotted around and sniffed and managed to trip over his back legs, Noah leaned against the side of the house, in the shadows beside Danny's study window.

"Sad, my ass," he said for no-one to hear.

Anxious and panicky, yeah. Twitchy. But that kept him alive. Impulsive. Dangerously impulsive, sometimes, like the time he went train surfing. Two friends lost their heads that night, but he limped away with nothing worse than a hairline fracture. A little bipolar, maybe, which was why he kept getting locked up and put on fucking useless meds. And there was that whole PTSD thing, but Danny was the one who should have been screwed sideways. So why did everything have to be him?

Noah closed his eyes and, despite himself, wished Dwight was there. He was big and warm and safe, and he knew all about Noah's track record, but treated him like a person anyway. It was weird as hell, but kinda nice.

Trayf pawed at Noah's leg and whined. Noah smirked at him.

"You poop where Danny'll step in it? Good boy!"

Noah followed him upstairs, now and then getting battered in the leg with a wagging tail. Trayf, however, walked past Noah's room. Noah called him, but Trayf only looked back and hurried to take his place at the foot of Oreet's bed. Noah stood in her doorway, staring at Trayf, who watched him, thumping his tail.

"The hell, man?" Noah and Trayf always slept together when Noah was home. "You dumping me?"

Trayf chuffed and curled up tight. Oreet muttered something about a robot and turned in her sleep. Her clock read 4:14. Too early to get up, too late to get any sleep.

And Noah didn't really want to be alone.

"You're a fucking idiot, Nori," he said as he slunk downstairs, hands in his pockets. Everyone in juvie had called him that, and he'd long since wished he could stop answering to it without thinking. Stupid kid, stupid name. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He felt better as soon as he set foot outside. A couple of seconds to set the alarm at his hack point, and Noah hauled himself over the fence and into Gloria Layman's backyard. It was a decent shortcut across the neighborhood, and got him to Dwight's place in three minutes instead of ten.

He stopped short of Dwight's patio, with its ugly iron furniture. The kitchen windows shone with all the wattage a whole ceiling of fluorescent bulbs could put forth. He hadn't turned the lights on, though. Noah wiped his sweaty palms on his sides and took a deep breath---

The back door opened, and Dwight leaned out, wearing plaid pants and a "Fuck the Police (We're Hot)" T-shirt. He motioned to Noah with his cup of coffee.

"Get the hell in here. How long's it take a dog to shit, anyway?"

"As long as it takes." Noah shuffled a little closer, feeling like a little kid who should have picked some flowers. "Squirt said I need to go on another date with you."

Dwight lifted his eyebrows. "That was a date?"

"S'what she said."

"Wanna make it a breakfast date?"

Noah grinned. "You sure you know what you're getting into? I'm loco, man."

Dwight grinned back. "I handled the PLO. I think I can handle you."

With a laugh, Noah sauntered inside. Dwight caught him and pulled him into a tight hug.

Noah flinched. An instant stretched like an hour, and Dwight drew back to look into Noah's eyes.

"You'll get there." He squeezed Noah's shoulder. "You're strong. Maybe the strongest person I know."

Noah opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn't find the words. He'd said them a thousand times, but they were gone. It took him a few minutes to realize that, for the first time in his life, he believed it. He _was_ strong. He was worth something to someone, not just Oreet, even if it only came to a movie, some breakfast, and a fucking amazing lay.

Dwight squeaked when Noah kissed him, but he went along with it quickly enough. He grinned when Noah pulled back.

"So," Noah said, folding his arms across his chest with a smirk. "What about that breakfast?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Noah. Fuck the modern world!


	5. The Beams of Our House are Cedars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil gets hurt, Theo deals with the results, and everyone learns what Bill Baggins is truly capable of doing.

According to his sister, Theo “liked his headspace a little too much.” According to him, Dee could go fuck herself, and so could everyone else. The occasional quiet Hillel meeting or family gathering aside, being around other people sucked the big one – and Theo knew from big ones. 

Phil had, thank God, not gotten sick overnight, even though Vince had sent Theo texts at the rate of approximately one per fifteen minutes about Caleb’s gruesome and graphic condition. _tht last batch lkd like the exorcist,_ the last one had read, and Theo could only assume that his brother-in-law had passed out from exhaustion and vomit fumes after that. Thank fuck for small favors and prescription-strength Dramamine, that was all he had to say about that. 

_Phil_. Theo frowned and pulled his earbuds out of his ears, cutting off the flow of death metal from his computer. The kid had been suspiciously quiet for the past hour. In fact, the last peep Theo had heard out of him had been something about throwing a Frisbee in the backyard, but that particular activity usually came with sound effects. “Phil?” Theo stood up and pushed open his window, which looked out on the fence between his and his asshole neighbor’s yard. “Phil, you still out there?”

“My Frisbee went on the roof, Uncle Theo!” Phil’s voice was _way_ too faint for someone supposedly in the backyard. Shit. “It’s okay!”

“Tell me he _isn’t_ ,” Theo growled at no one in particular, then craned his neck up towards the roof overhang. “Philip, are you on the goddamn _roof_ right now?”

“It’s okay! I’m being totally safe.” Theo felt his mouth drop open as Phil’s head appeared over the edge of the roof. “I’m on my belly, okay? So I’m not standing or anything. And I got a ladder.”

“Are you kidding me? How did you get the…” Theo shook his head. This wasn’t important enough to bother with until Phil was safely on the ground again. “Fuck that. I don’t want to know. You stay where you are and I’ll get you down.”

“Uncle _Theo_ , come on. I’m not a baby.” Phil was starting to whine even worse than he had last night, which definitely didn’t help his case. “I can get down myself.”

“Like hell you will!” Theo shouted. His cheeks were heating up, just like they always did when he was severely pissed off. “You’ll move over my dead –“

It happened so fast that Theo barely saw him. Phil was a blur of flailing limbs and a head (oh, God, a vulnerable head that could crack and then Dinah would commit fratricide for sure) streaking past his window and landing on his one fungus-ridden rosebush with a crunch that could have split dimensions. 

Theo was halfway through the window before the screaming started. By the time it reached a crescendo, he had fallen out the rest of the way, scraped his right side against the side of the house, done battle with the rosebush, and inwardly thanked God that he worked on the first floor at least five times. “Fuck, Phil.” He picked up his nephew and patted the back of his neck, hoping against hope that that didn’t do any more damage. “I’m taking you to the hospital, okay?”

“ _It HURTS!_ ” Phil howled. “It hurts it hurts it _HURTS!_ ” He shuddered in Theo’s arms, shaking harder with every escalation in volume. 

“What hurts? Tell me, Phil. What hurts?” He couldn’t run with an armful of screaming kid, so he power-walked as smoothly as he could to where his car sat in the driveway. 

“Elbow…” Phil hid his face in Theo’s shoulder. It was ominously, and disgustingly, wet, and Theo didn’t hold out much hope for his favorite shirt. “I don’t _wanna_ go to the hospital!”

Not that Theo really wanted to take him, either, but by the time he could get an ambulance to the house, Phil probably would have passed out from the pain already. The paramedics would probably be a little too aggressive with the treatments and CPR if that happened. Broken ribs were the last complication he wanted to have to explain to his sister, on top of everything else. “Tough shit, Philly. Think you broke something. God knows I can’t set it.”

Theo wrapped his few available fingers around the car-door handle and pulled it open, setting Phil down in the backseat as gently as he could and covering him with a blanket. He buckled the middle belt awkwardly over Phil’s abdomen, too, just to make sure his nephew wouldn’t be completely eviscerated if some dickbag rear-ended them again. He’d barely gotten the dents out from last time, and he had more precious cargo now than a box of old swords. 

Phil whimpered as Theo backed out of the driveway, but was uncharacteristically quiet for the rest of the drive to the hospital. That was even more worrying than the blood slowly staining his backseat, because while Phil had bled in his car before, he rarely cried. 

As soon as he had the car parked, probably illegally, Theo picked Phil back up and all but ran to the hospital’s emergency entrance. “You’re gonna be okay, Phil. You believe me?”

“No.” Phil wasn’t crying anymore, but he was shivering, and that was even scarier than when he had been crying loudly enough to burst some eardrums. Even though the scrapes on his arms and legs had started to crust over, Theo couldn’t even look at his arm without wanting to puke his guts up. “Don’t tell Mom, Uncle Theo.”

“What, that you were on the roof?” Theo shook his head, looked around the ER, and went to what looked like some kind of information desk. “Buddy, I think she’ll figure that out herself.” He turned his highest-watt glare onto the receptionist. “Hey, could we get some fuckin’ help? I’m pretty sure my nephew broke something.”

She blinked at him. “How was he injured?” Her voice was thick with a Boston accent. 

“Little moron fell off the roof. Phil, don’t give me that look.” Phil opened his mouth, then – wisely – shut it. 

“Is he able to move his limbs?” the receptionist asked. 

Shit. He should’ve at least tried to figure that out before marching in here with his guns blazing. “Phil, can you walk?”

Phil wiped his eyes. “I think so. My arm just hurts, not my legs.” He weakly kicked out an ankle, earning a grunt from Theo when a dirty sneaker hit him in the stomach. 

“No sign of head trauma or chest pain?”

Theo shook his head. “Nah. If he had a head injury, I’d know it. He was screaming earlier and now he won’t shut up.” And if _he_ didn’t stop it with the goddamn nervous chatter, he was going to be called onto the rug for suspected child abuse or whatever before they even gave Phil an X-ray. He fucking _hated_ having to deal with people. 

“Okay. Have a seat, sir, and someone will examine him as soon as possible.”

Theo did as he was told, carrying Phil to the waiting area near the emergency desk and setting him down on his back across three seats. “How long is this gonna take, Uncle Theo?” Phil asked. 

“F - damn if I know.” Theo patted Phil on his un-injured elbow. “I haven’t been to a hospital in ages. Hold that thought.” He grabbed an intake form on a clipboard from the front desk and filled it out, deliberately keeping his eyes off the receptionist while he wrote. Good thing his hair covered his face if he tilted his head forward. 

“Mom said you went to the hospital once,” Phil commented, once Theo had finished the insurance shit and returned to their seats. 

“Yeah? What’d she say?” Where the fuck was the vending machine around here? Theo desperately needed some Red Bull. 

“Yeah. They put a finger up your butt.” Phil snickered. 

“Shut up, Philly. No one asked you to hurt yourself.” Theo patted Phil on the head and zoned out of his nephew’s chatter, instead focusing on the crappy kids’ program playing on TV mounted on a nearby wall. It was a useful skill to cultivate when you had nephews. 

He figured it took about an hour and a half of staring at Foster’s Home for Weird-Looking Blobs and the plaster stains on the walls before someone finally got around to examining Phil. “Philip?” A nurse poked his head out of a doorway and glanced down at his clipboard. “Is there a Philip – oh, Jesus.”

Fuck. Theo knew that accent. And that face. “Hi, Baggage,” he said, waving. “You remember my nephew from yesterday.”

Baggage sighed. “Well, I’m the only nurse free right now. Let’s try to make this as painless as possible.”

“Not possible. Phil? Buddy?” Theo looked down, only to see that his nephew had fallen asleep. “Phil?” He tapped Phil’s chin until his eyes opened. “Time to wake up. Douche-Baggage needs to make sure you’re not completely broken.”

“For the hundredth time,” Baggage said, rolling his eyes, “that’s _Baggins_ , and you’re tremendously lucky that certain laws exist to protect you in my workplace.” He looked at Phil, and his voice changed from its snappy tone to a much softer one. “What happened, Philip?”

“I fell off the roof.” Phil rubbed his eyes with his uninjured forearm. “You’re not gonna give me a shot, are you?”

“Let’s just give you a bit of an exam for now, and then see what’s wrong before we start making any snap judgments, all right?” Baggage pointed his thumb towards one of the cubicles ringing the waiting room. “You can walk, yes?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Phil asked as he stood up. “ _Yeah_ , I can walk!”

Theo would have reprimanded him, but quite frankly, he thought Baggage needed a little rudeness spice in the stew of his everyday routine. Boring assholes tended to benefit from the patented Derensky Glare. Not that anyone besides the people he ran into got the full brunt of it – Dee was too chickenshit to unleash hers, and his brother Forrest had been dead for twenty years. 

Baggage certainly seemed discomfited under his laser stare as he situated Phil on the exam table and lifted his forearm. “How did this happen?” he asked. 

“I was playing on the roof,” Phil said, either happily oblivious or trying to get Theo into deep shit. The grin on his face could have gone either way. “I wasn’t supposed to, and then Uncle Theo yelled at me to get off and I got really surprised, so I fell off instead.”

“You forgot the part where I jumped out the window after you and got attacked by a rosebush,” Theo interjected, wiggling the more scratched-up of his hands. 

Baggage stared. “You’ve bled into your shirt! How did you not notice that?”

“Too busy looking after the kid,” Theo said. Maybe that would get him enough brownie points that everyone would forget to ask what he’d been doing when Phil climbed up onto the roof in the first place. He had to admit that Baggage was right when he took a look at his arm, though – his shirt was ruined for sure, and he wasn’t looking forward to pulling that scab away from his copious body hair. _Fuck_ , and this was his favorite long-sleeved tee, not that Phil had taken that into consideration before snotting all over it earlier. 

Baggage finished his exam and set Phil’s arm back down. “We’ll have to take X-rays to make sure,” he said, “but it looks like you may have fractured your elbow. Fortunately, I don’t think there’s any bone displacement or nerve damage.”

 _Thank God_ , Theo thought, but as usual, Phil was only interested in the flashy stuff. “Does that mean I get a cast?”

Baggage shook his head. “A sling is more likely, I’m afraid,” he said, “but if I were you, I’d be grateful that you haven’t any neuropathy.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry, that’s medical-speak for tingling. It means you’ve not got any nerve damage, and that can be long-lasting in someone your age, especially around the growth plates.”

“Oh.” Phil blinked, clearly disappointed about the cast. “That’s…good?”

“Yes, it’s good.” Baggage smiled at him, and now it was Theo’s turn to blink. The guy had a nice smile, and dimples, too. Dammit. “I don’t believe the X-ray techs are too backed up this morning, so I’ll have someone take you over for a scan.”

“X-rays are cool,” Phil said, perking up. Theo couldn’t blame him; ionizing radiation _was_ pretty cool. He’d had to have a chest X-ray once as a kid, and unless he was mistaken, the prints were still floating around his house somewhere. 

“I need to go call your dad, Philly,” he told his nephew. “Yeah, I know you don’t want your parents to know, but they’re going to get pretty suspicious if you come home with a mysterious sling. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Phil said, his tone dripping with pre-teen condescension that Theo even had to ask. “I’m _eleven_.”

“Good. I’ll talk to you later, then, champ.” Theo clapped him on the shoulder and went out into the atrium, dialing Vince’s cell number as he went. It was noon; with any luck, Dee would still be asleep and he wouldn’t have to face her wrath for a while. 

“Yo,” Vince said when he picked up. “What’s up, Theo?”

Theo took a deep breath. Vince wasn’t nearly as scary as Dee, but he’d never had to face his brother-in-law after one of his sons got injured on Theo’s watch. For all he knew, Vince would turn into a fire-breathing dragon right about now, and he wasn’t sure whether that would be literal or metaphorical, either. “Sorry to bother you, Vince, but I’m at the hospital. Phil broke his elbow.”

“Oh my _God_ , what happened?” 

“The little shit –“ and some soccer mom glared daggers at Theo over the back of the nearest seat; he ignored her – “was climbing on my roof and he fell off when I yelled at him.”

There was a pause. “You are _so_ freaking lucky Dee is on the can,” Vince said, “or she’d kick your ass. Is he feeling okay? I mean, are we talking bone pieces pokin’ out of the skin, or just weird lumpy stuff on his arm?”

“You need to stop watching Grey’s Anatomy,” Theo told him. Vince lived for TV dramas. Glorified soap operas, in Theo’s opinion. “No, he’s fine. The nurse said it’s probably not – Jesus fuckin’ _Lipschitz_ , I forgot. You’re never gonna believe who examined him.”

“Dr. Kevorkian?”

“I wish. No, it’s that clueless goy from last night. The nurse.”

Vince cackled. “Oh, _man!_ I knew you had the hots for him! Did he give you those _lingering looks_ and tell you that you could cry on his shoulder if you need to?”

“The fuck, Vincenzo?” Theo took his phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, wondering what kind of crack Vince was smoking and if he could possibly get a contact high from a phone call. “He manhandled Phil’s arm and rolled his eyes at me. What the hell gave you that idea?”

“You only save your Yiddish insults for people you want to bang,” Vince explained. 

“ _Forget it_ , Vince.” Theo would have flipped him off, but it was kind of hard to do that to a voice, and he didn’t want to piss off the soccer mom any more than he already had. “Anyway, Phil went to get X-rays and I’m stuck in the waiting room. I’m leavin’ it to you to tell Dee what happened.”

“That won’t be for a while. Caleb’s contagious, and she just pooped her body weight _this morning_. Wild, huh?”

Theo winced. “TMI. Truly. I don’t need to hear about the inner workings of my sister’s colon.”

“Neither did I. Cheers, dude.” He could practically see Vince doing a mock-salute off the wrong part of his forehead. “Call me when you find out more, okay? And let Philly talk to me if he wants.”

“Will do,” Theo said. “And for the record, you’re a _ferkakte gonif_ , but I don’t want to bang you, either.” With that, he hung up and stashed his phone in his jeans pocket, then went to sprawl out over a couple of seriously uncomfortable waiting-room chairs. 

He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but it must have happened, because the next thing he saw was Baggage’s face looming over him. “If you’ll come with me, please, _Doctor_ Derensky,” he said in the fussiest voice Theo had heard out of him yet. 

“Huh?” Theo said, and extricated himself from his chair nest. “Are Phil’s X-rays done?”

“Yes, yes.” Baggage led him back to the cubicle, where Phil was waiting, this time with his injured arm held in a sling against his chest. “It’s broken, but Dr. Chaudhuri fixed him up in a jiffy. You’ll want to come back in four weeks to begin physical therapy, since there’ll be some atrophy. And _you_ ,” he said, fixing his eyes on Phil, “aren’t to take that arm out of the sling for any reason except to have a shower.”

“Okay!” Phil said, even more cheerful than he’d been earlier. Theo sincerely hoped that that was from some kind of pain med and not from telling Embarrassing Uncle Theo stories, as was Phil’s habit. He’d inherited that particular tendency from his father, to whom even Dee referred as the Chronic Oversharer. 

However, it wasn’t Theo’s lucky day. “Your nephew told me something very interesting,” Baggage said, turning to him. Theo did _not_ like the gleam in his eye. “Is it true you’ve gone a decade without vaccinations?”

“They mat my pelt,” Theo grumbled, and folded his arms. This wasn’t any of Baggage’s business. 

“Well, as a medical professional, I’d strongly advise you to have them,” Baggage said, affecting a knowledgeable air that was horribly familiar from Theo’s time around the religion professors. “Otherwise, you run the risk of all sorts of horrible diseases, and your nephews’ health will likely suffer for it.”

One worried puppy-eyes look from Phil, and Theo knew he was a goner. 

And one hour, an ass that felt like a pincushion, and a yelled invitation from his nephew to visit Hillel later, he was beginning to seriously regret taking Phil to the hospital at all. 

See if he did that when the kid came down with the fucking bubonic plague. Just see if he would. At least then, he wouldn’t have to deal with a British nurse who had a hypodermic needle and way too much damn time on his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ferkakte gonif" is Yiddish for a fucking shyster. 
> 
> Sorry about the SERIOUSLY LONG delay; I've had a hell of a lot of school. :D


	6. That Washes the Weary Mud Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill comes back to Hillel, and Theo doesn't fail to notice. 
> 
> (Freaking med school, guys. Freaking. Med. School. Bad Seas.)

“Hey, Mr. Baggage!” the blond boy shouted. “Mr. Baggage, over here! We got challah already!”

What had he been _thinking_ , accepting this ill-got invitation? Bill had no idea. Philip’s uncle had certainly glared daggers at the poor boy for even broaching the subject, his previous bellows about how a few vaccination boosters were the worst thing in his life notwithstanding. 

Bill let out a sigh and sat down at the scratched, vinyl-topped table with Philip, his parents, and his brother. Who was he trying to fool? Uncle or no, he would have come anyway. He’d dealt with arseholes in his life for less of a payoff than not having to cook after a long shift, and there was no guarantee the arsehole was even going to show up. Arse – and he needed to stop that train of thought this instant. “How does your arm feel, then?” he asked with a smile. 

“Way, _way_ better,” Philip said, and raised his arm, which was bound up in a bog-standard blue sling. “Caleb’s jealous.”

“I am not,” the aforementioned brother muttered towards the tabletop, adding “ _douchebag_ ” in a whisper. 

“Hey.” The boys’ mother – what was her name? Del, Dee, something short and pleasant – held up one finger. “How many times did I say it, Caleb? How many? Tell me.”

“Five times,” Caleb said, his voice heavy with the singsong of a child seeing how far he could push the parent scolding him. “I know, Mom.” He scooted his chair, which squeaked in protest, across the flecked linoleum floor from his mother’s side to Bill’s. “I’m sorry, Mr. Baggage. I know it’s not cool to hurt yourself.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Bill assured him. Caleb’s eyes were brown, not blue like his uncle’s, and his hair was curlier, but it seemed that Bill couldn’t resist that pleading look from a Derensky of any age or surname. “I’m off-shift, Caleb, don’t worry. I won’t give you a mark off in your health class.”

“It’s okay,” Caleb said. “I don’t take health class until year after next.”

“Oh. Er.” Bill had rather meant that as a joke, but what was one supposed to do when a child took those things seriously? “Well, let’s hope they don’t neglect the sex education.”

Caleb’s eyes widened, Philip burst into laughter, and Bill winced. As a few unpleasant encounters with patients’ parents had taught him, he needed to suss out politics _before_ running his mouth like that. The East Coast this might have been, but England it was not. “God, sorry, I forgot myself,” he said to the boys’ parents. “And please pardon me, but I’ve forgotten your names as well.”

“I’m Vince,” said the blond man, patting Bill’s hand across the table. “That’s Dinah. And don’t worry about it – they totally hear worse from their uncle.” He scratched at the short stubble on his chin and said, apropos of absolutely nothing, “God, I need a shave.”

“I’m kind of surprised you forgot,” Dinah said with a puzzled frown in Bill’s direction. “Didn’t you have to deal with our insurance?”

“Wait, I thought you took care of that,” Vince interjected. 

“No, Vincenzo, I was on the _can_ all day. Sh- _oot_ ,” Dinah said, giving her sons – occupied in whispering to each other – a quick glance even as her voice rose, “did we forget to _pay?_ Oh, _God_.”

“Your brother paid, actually. Cash,” Bill said hastily. His heart was beginning to go into Screaming Relatives mode. “So you won’t be getting a bill. Or a call about the bill.”

Dinah’s mouth opened once, then closed. “Oh.” She looked at Vince in a way that Bill couldn’t quite decode. “Okay. Yeah, that explains it.” Then, sighing, she added, “Look, Mr. Baggins, I swear, my brother’s not some kind of drug runner – “

“EW!” Caleb shrieked, and shot up out of his seat just as the man in front began his speech, or whatever it was he was saying. Bill had always done well in languages, but the Romance ones were more intelligible to him than Hebrew was. “Mom, Phil said what sex ed is!”

Philip smirked. “Isn’t it so gross?”

“Caleb, sit _down!_ ” Dinah yanked Caleb forcibly into his chair by the arm. “Go ahead, Omer,” she called. “My sons are being little _mamzerim_. Ignore them, please.” That got a laugh, which was presumably the result she wanted. At any rate, Omer looked mollified, and began chanting again. 

“Mom, it’s _totally_ gross,” Caleb protested in a whisper. “I don’t ever wanna put my thingy in someone else!”

“No one says you have to, but you can’t do that again,” Dinah said. “Caleb, look at me. Do you understand? No more yelling at Hillel. Especially not that kind of stuff.” She shook her head. “God, Vince, he’s a worse loudmouth than Dane. That has to be from your side.”

“Er…are you talking about Dane Cook?” Bill asked. “I’d have to agree with you there.” He’d had a few patients who insisted on watching Comedy Central through their recovery, which was how he’d become acquainted with some comedians against his will. 

“No, Dane’s my cousin. Well, second cousin,” Dinah said. “He lives in Chicago, which is good, because he and Theo can’t stand each other. Well, I mean…he’s perfectly nice, but you know Theo. He gets mad about something and he _never_ lets it go.”

“Mr. Baggage?” Caleb interrupted, pulling on Bill’s arm. “You’re a nurse, right? Can you tell Phil that I don’t have to put it in someone else if I don’t want to?”

“Of course you don’t have to put it in,” Bill said. Oh, bugger all, he could feel his cheeks flaming up. “But you’ll learn how to use protection in health class, in case you ever want to someday.”

“What’s protection?” Of course that was the question for which Caleb forgot his indoor voice. This time, though, Omer didn’t even pause, and Bill couldn’t have been more relieved. 

It was terribly unfortunate that Theodor Derensky, erstwhile uncle, also chose that moment to enter the social hall. Well, Bill’s evening was certainly looking down from here on out. “Sorry I’m late, Dee,” Theodor said, and slammed his briefcase down on the flimsy collapsible table hard enough to make his nephews’ empty plates jump. “This asshole got in a fender-bender near the exit. Had to take the side streets.”

“Did you get lost again, Uncle Theo?” Phil asked. Cheeky of him, in Bill’s opinion, when that briefcase sounded heavy enough to contain anything and his uncle was clearly in a foul mood. 

The arsehole’s sigh was louder than his sister’s. “You know it, buddy. God, I’m hungry. Did Omer finish yet?”

“Well, he’s giving you the death glare, so probably soon,” Vince said. “I’m hungry, too.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his belly with the palm of one hand. “I think Bram tried to tell me that Benny’s doing traditional stuff tonight. That or he wants to eat me, not sure which.”

“Schnitzel and farfel?” Theodor said. Vince nodded. “ _Hell_ yeah.” He took off his blazer (which, Bill was more than a bit amused to note, did have suede patches on the elbows) and stretched his arms over his head. “I haven’t eaten since – ah, Jesus F. Lipschitz, you actually came.” He looked at Bill and rolled his eyes. 

“I beg your _pardon_ ,” Bill said in his most acerbic tone, “but I hardly think that’s any of your business.”

This time, Dinah and Vince were the ones to laugh, not the boys. Theodor just scowled. Philip and Caleb, thank goodness, looked befuddled enough that Bill could tell they didn’t understand the double entendre. “Good one,” Dinah said. “Theo, if you don’t have anything nice to say, go hang out with Danny Reisberg.”

“I’ll do no such thing.” Theodor put a hand on his chest. “You wound me, Dee. I am not that fussy.”

“Mom? Dad? Uncle Theo?” Phil interrupted. “It’s food time.”

“We missed the _motzi?_ ” Vince craned his long neck towards the serving tables, where people were indeed congregating with plates. “Go on up, you guys. You know you don’t have to wait for us.”

“Yeah, but it’s your favorite and Benny’s gonna eat it if I don’t tell you,” Philip said, then – mission completed – bolted to the food with his brother. 

“Well,” said Vince, “you heard him. Want to go stuff ourselves?”

“God, yes,” Theodor answered, and for the first time that day, Bill thoroughly agreed with him. En masse, the adults of their table stood up and went to scrounge themselves up some supper. 

Bill wasn’t nearly so gauche as to comment on anyone’s beard in the food line this time (he’d berated himself for that, certainly), but he made sure to load up. From the appreciative words of the people around him, he gathered that the delicious-smelling chicken cutlets were schnitzel, the oniony pasta-like stuff was farfel, and the crusty dish that every child in the place kept attacking was kugel. Apple cinnamon, in fact, as he found out when he took a bite. 

“You’re Benny, yes?” he asked the fat man standing proprietarily behind the steaming foil dishes. “Did you cook all of this yourself? You have talent!”

“Oh, yes, I am,” Benny said, beaming at him. He had a pleasant North Irish accent that seemed to fit his broad smile and big body. “Benjamin Budin, at your service, and feel free to laugh at the film title. I hear you’re the one who saved Philly Adler-Derensky’s arm.”

“How do you know that?”

“That kid can’t keep a secret.” Benny leaned in and winked, then lowered his voice. “Neither can his parents, if y’want the truth. Vince told my brother the day it happened, and Bo told me.”

“Sorry, who’s Bo? I’ve only been here once before.”

“’Course, I forgot. My brother, Boaz. Bo!” Benny shouted, and a dark-haired man with a sort of glorified ushanka on his head and a truly unforgettable mustache looked up from a table across the room. Unforgettable, of course, in that Bill now remembered seeing it before. “Come say hi to Bill over here!”

“Yeah, all right.” Boaz stuffed a bite of bread in his mouth and sauntered over, holding out a hand to Bill. “Hello,” he said, and smiled Benny’s smile. “Hey, you look familiar. Did me’n my cousin grace y’ with our presence at the hospital?”

“Yes, once.” Bill felt the corners of his mouth quirk up. Boaz had a certain hilarious way with words. “If your cousin’s the one with the scar. I saw him here last week and nearly scared the daylights out of myself.”

“Aye, sorry about that. Sometimes, Bram has an episode.” Boaz tapped the side of his head. “Things’re a bit scrambled upstairs, see?”

“Goodness. Do you mind if I ask what happened to him?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Boaz said cheerfully, and popped a piece of kugel into his mouth. Benny hit his hand with a wooden spoon, and he yelped. “Oi, quit that! Anyway, it was a police accident back in Ireland. Some copper cracked him one right in the forehead, _bam_.” He made a fist and lightly demonstrated on himself. “Couldn’t speak a thing but Hebrew afterwards. Benny’n me are the only ones in the family who can understand him. Dad sure didn’t remember Hebrew school!”

“Could you, er, repeat what you said about things upstairs?” Bill asked slowly. He’d never heard a relative of someone with a mental issue express themselves quite so colorfully on the subject, although he was sure that his fellow nurses on the neuro ward could have topped that. 

“Oh, the scrambled bit?” Boaz’s smile widened and he shook his head. “Looks like I just did. Bram!” he shouted. “You’d say that’s true, yeah?”

Bram replied with something incomprehensible and a gesture that was rather universal in the English-speaking world. “Ah, Bram, that’s why I love ye,” Boaz said in a fond tone. “I tease,” he added as he turned back to Bill, “but he’s sharp as always. Just not in a language people ‘round here can really understand.”

“I assume that I could hazard a guess at what he was telling you to do to yourself,” Bill said. Daniel Reisberg looked over with a paternal sort of glare and shushed him. “Sorry, I’ll lower the volume.”

“Think nothin’ of it.” Boaz waved a dismissive hand. “And yeah, Bram told me he’s bogartin’ the remote tonight and I can’t do a thing about it. His method of revenge.”

“Bill,” Benny said, “I forgot to ask, but would you give us the details on savin’ Phil’s life?”

“I hardly even saved his _arm!_ ” Bill exclaimed. It looked like the gossip chain was just as twisted for Jewish communities as for massive small-town English families. “He broke his _elbow_. His life was never in any danger.” 

On instinct, he paused and sucked in a breath, then reconsidered his usual method of saying a disclaimer. These were not, he suspected, people who would send a hue and cry after him for a minor HIPAA violation, and they all seemed to know the details anyway. 

“Oh.” Benny pouted out his lower lip. “I love a good rescue story.”

Well, the more luridly embellished details, at that. 

“That would be why you’re addicted to Grey’s Anatomy, Ben-Ben,” Boaz said. Benny raised his wooden spoon again, and Boaz ducked. “Quit swingin’ at me!” he said from under the protective cover of one upraised arm. 

“I’m not. Only makin’ a point.” Benny put the spoon down and folded his arms; Bill let himself momentarily marvel at how quickly Benny’s round face could go from utterly riled up to completely placid. “It’s all right if you didn’t save his life. I made ye some extra dessert anyway.” 

“Wait, you did?” Bill said, and as if on cue, his stomach gurgled. “You didn’t have to do that!”

Benny shook his head and clapped Bill hard on the back. “Philly’s one of ours, and his uncle can be a right pain up the arse. You deserve dessert.” He produced a paper plate of some sort of chocolate-covered thing, covered in bright red Saran wrap. “I made chocolate babka!”

“It looks _delicious_ ,” Bill said. “Is it all right if I take that with me for later?” 

“No reason why not.”

“Good. If I don’t eat now, I’m going to faint.” Bill picked up his plate, satisfied himself that it was still warm, and took Benny’s plate in his other hand. “Thank you for the introduction, Benny.” Hm. It would be rude to just go sit down without tasting this wonderful-looking dessert, wouldn’t it? It would. Bill peeled off the plastic wrap and put a piece of the babka into his mouth. 

“Oh, _bugger,_ ” he moaned, feeling his eyes close. The dessert was far gooier than it looked, and he was quite sure that his lips were covered in chocolate. No matter. This stuff was heaven – pastry and chocolate and cinnamon, almost better than getting a lone doughnut at the end of a long shift (and that was hard to top). “All right, Benny,” he said once he’d swallowed, “I need to get your number and ring you for the recipe. Possibly all your recipes.” 

“Absolutely!” Benny said. “You said you’re hungry, right?” Bill nodded. “All right, come talk to me next Hillel. We’ll find a time to cook together.”

“That sounds amazing,” Bill answered, and gave Benny a last friendly nod, then went back to the table with his spoils. 

“You were up there a while,” Theodor commented through a mouthful as soon as Bill sat down. 

“I happen to like the Budin family,” Bill said. “Where did Caleb go?” The space next to his was empty. 

“He went over to bug Oreet,” Vince answered. 

“Oreet?” Bill picked up his fork and started in on the farfel.

“The Reisbergs’ kid sister,” Dinah explained. “You know the one who showed everyone his ass last week? That’s Noah. He’s…kind of trouble.”

Bill looked over to where the Reisbergs were sitting. Noah was seated between his brother and his sister, who didn’t look terribly happy at Caleb. From the look of it, the boy was really talking _at_ her more than _to_ her. “Well, he’s not in prison, at least.”

“Close thing,” Dinah said, and shrugged. “Dwight took him home instead. Dwight Feldman,” she said, just as Bill started to open his mouth. “Sitting over there. He’s a cop, and his brother is Brian.”

Even sitting down, Dwight was clearly considerably taller than his brother, who had fluffy white hair, an equally fluffy white beard, and the look of an overgrown garden gnome. “You said they’re brothers?” Bill said. “Brian looks at least sixty.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t age well,” Vince agreed. “More like fifty, I think. Dwight’s forty. He and Theo like to bitch about gray hair.”

“Fuck off, Vince,” Theodor retorted through an even larger mouthful. 

“I suppose Dwight is the lucky one in that scenario,” Bill said. The man was completely bald; Bill’s best guess would be either recent cancer, which didn’t look likely given his strong physique, or a shave job to cover up the shame of a receding hairline. Dwight did look frightening enough to possibly want to avoid that sort of embarrassment. 

“Dwight’s lucky, all right,” Theo said, smirking, and that started a conversation about some incident that Bill absolutely could not follow. Well, his head was already spinning from his day at work, so it was best not to try. Instead, he let himself lapse into a semi-doze while he ate and looked around while the conversation turned into a buzz around him. 

He finished his farfel, chewed on his schnitzel – overcooked a bit, but utterly delicious – and turned his eyes to the dinner theatre going on at the Reisbergs’ table. Oreet, in an impressive display of control for a child of her age, managed to only look more and more annoyed at Caleb, who had situated himself between her and Daniel. At least, until Caleb touched her shoulder. 

“HEY!” Oreet bellowed, slamming her colored pencils down and standing up so fast that Caleb looked terrified. Everyone in the room went quiet. “I’m _DRAWIN’_ here!”

“Okay,” Caleb said, and scarpered. 

Bill had to commend Oreet; that was the second-thickest Boston accent he’d heard for a while, at least this side of any given gaggle of stevedores. The thickest, of course, was coming out of the mouth of the smirking man next to him, even as the snickers in the social hall turned back to normal chatter. “Caley,” Theodor told his nephew, “that was completely your fault.”

Caleb put his head down on his arms. “I just wanted to say _hi_ ,” he said in a voice that sounded muffled, but thankfully not near tears. 

“That was ‘hi’ fifteen minutes ago. Then you were just on vacation.”

“Family Guy!” Vince whooped. He held out his hand for Theo to slap, which Theo did. “I’ve trained you well.”

“As if. I started watchin’ that before you did.”

Bill rolled his eyes. _Ridiculous_. The only thing that could be done to combat such immaturity was to eat dessert, which luckily, he had right in front of him. He opened up Benny’s plate again and took out a larger piece of babka, which he promised himself he would savor and then immediately proceeded to shove into his mouth anyway. His stomach was such a liar. 

He polished off the piece of babka, took another, ate that, and was going to take a third when he saw how covered in chocolate his fingers were. Theodor and both of his nephews were staring, too, Bill noticed, and he felt his face flush. How uncouth did he look to them?”

“Sorry,” he said, and cleared his throat. His voice was clogged with pastry eaten far too fast. “I ought to have shared. Dessert?” He pushed the plate towards the center of the table. 

“Awesome!” Phil grabbed for a piece, only to be stopped by his uncle’s fingers clamping onto his wrist. 

“Knock it off, Philly,” Theodor said. “That’s Baggage’s babka. You patch up your own elbow, _then_ Benny’ll make you some.”

“ _Baggins!_ ” Bill corrected. Theodor ignored him. 

“But he _said_ it’s okay,” Caleb whined. “And you said he poked you in the butt, so we should get his babka! It’s punishment damages.”

“ _Punitive_ damages,” Theodor said, and grimaced. Bill’s cheeks flamed even hotter as he suddenly, graphically recalled the sight of the man’s round arse jutting up at him from his prone position on the exam table. In an instant, Bill had an erection, never mind that he’d tried to forget that arse since wanking off three times last Saturday night. 

No. No, those sorts of thoughts were unwelcome in Bill’s head. For all he knew, Theodor considered himself Bill’s patient now, the comment about his body at last week’s Hillel notwithstanding. Hospitals had a way of changing people’s perceptions, and it was incredibly unethical to make advances towards a patient. Bill shook his head to get rid of the intrusive thoughts and put his fingers in his mouth, sucking the chocolate off as politely as he could. 

“Hey.” There was a finger poking his shoulder. Bill looked over to find Theodor very much in his personal space, bright blue eyes deep, intense, and very dilated. They were also fixed on Bill’s wet fingers to a rather alarming degree. “I haven’t shown you where the bathroom is, right? I gotta do that.”

The _bathroom?_ “Nnnno,” Bill said slowly. “No, I suppose you’d best show me, hadn’t you?”

Theodor stood up immediately, nearly knocking his plate over. “Okay, I’m showin’ Baggage the bathroom. Don’t finish his dessert. You either, Vince.”

“Go to hell, Theo,” Vince said cheerfully. 

“Already there, Vincenzo,” Theodor answered. He motioned to Bill with a crooked finger, and Bill followed. His heart was pounding, and his face was beginning to sweat. Was he about to be beaten? Had he said something offensive? 

Theodor led Bill out the door of the social hall, down a narrow hallway, past a couple of rooms that looked like offices, and between two columns of file cabinets to a door with a handwritten sign on it that said “PEE ROOM.” Bill briefly wondered if Phil or Caleb had made it, and then he couldn’t think at all for Theodor pressing him up against the wall and kissing him hard. 

Bill’s eyes closed and he moaned deeply, pushing his hips forward so that his erection pressed against the leg of Theodor’s dress trousers. He set to thrusting his hips and kissed Theodor with his mouth open, their tongues touching with every bruising smack of their lips. Theodor’s lips were chapped and full; they were warm on Bill’s mouth, and his beard rubbed and scratched against every bit of skin it touched. 

He couldn’t resist reaching around and grabbing Theodor’s arse, which elicited a gasp from its owner, followed by a groan that made Bill even harder. From the feel of it, Theodor wasn’t wearing any underwear, or if he was, it was thin and tight. _God_ , that was a fucking turn-on. Bill cupped his arse and squeezed the cheeks, careful even in his state of arousal to avoid the places where he’d given Theodor his vaccinations. 

Theodor’s hands came to rest on Bill’s hips and squeezed in much the same way Bill was doing. Between kisses, the sneaking suspicion came into Bill’s mind that if his arse weren’t resting against the plaster wall, Theodor’s hands would be on that instead, from how enthusiastically he was getting squeezed. 

Their lips broke apart, and Theodor rested his forehead against Bill’s, his lips moving as he spoke into Bill’s cheek. Bill would swear that he could feel the vibrations of that deep voice all the way into his prick. “Can I take you home?”

“To yours,” Bill said, short of breath, “or mine, Doctor Derensky?”

“Mine.” Theodor bit Bill’s chin. “Call me Theo.”

“Theo,” Bill repeated. Theodor - _Theo’s_ eyes crinkled up at the corners, which made them look even bluer. “I’d –“ And then he remembered how he’d gotten here in the first place. “ _Bugger!_ ” he said, and then added when Theo’s face fell, “I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with my car.”

“Where do you live?” Theo asked. 

“I’ve got a flat on Burlington.”

“Easy fix,” Theo said. “Danny lives right by there. You got your keys on you?” Bill nodded and dug them out of the pocket of his scrubs. “Either he or Noah can run your car home. Or I can bring you back tomorrow to get it.”

“He’s trustworthy?” Bill said. 

“God, yeah. I’ve known him for years. He’s my lawyer, actually.”

“Wait, _your_ lawyer? What do you need a lawyer for?” Bill asked. First Dinah’s comment about how Theo definitely wasn’t a drug runner, and now he had a lawyer? 

“Tax stuff,” Theo said, and grinned. “I’m fuckin’ terrible at math.”

“Ah. No, I understand.” Bill looked down at his keys, jingling them a bit in his palm. Really, how likely was it that Theo was seducing him for the express purpose of cooking up a plot to send his car to a chop shop? He knew the answer already, of course: not bloody likely at all. “All right, you can give him my keys. I’d rather not get up early.”

Theo chewed on his bottom lip for a few seconds, the sight of which made Bill have to wipe the sweat off his forehead and concentrate on not coming in his trousers. “You want me to go make excuses to everyone?” he asked. “You do _not_ want to deal with those assholes when they’re smug. I’ll, um…I don’t know, tell them you got Dee’s massive diarrhea or something.”

“That was last week,” Bill pointed out. “They’ll hardly believe it now.”

“Trust me, they don’t know jack about medicine. I’ll take care of it.” Theo held out a big hand. “Keys?”

“Yeah, here.” Bill dropped them into Theo’s palm. “My car is the dark green Camry.”

Theo took them and shoved them into a pocket of his blazer. “Be right back,” he said, and then his hands were cupping Bill’s face, huge and warm and dry against his cheeks, and his lips were on Bill’s again, open, tender, wet. 

“God, _no_ ,” Bill blurted out when Theo broke away, his eyes still closed. “Don’t go, oh, _fuck_.”

Theo’s gulp was audible, if not visible. “Jesus F., now I don’t want to, either,” he said in a voice gone deeper and huskier than Bill had ever heard it. “I’ll, uh. I’ll be right back before I embarrass myself.” 

“Right, yeah,” Bill whispered, but judging by the sound of the fast, heavy footsteps going back down the hall, Theo hadn’t heard him. He opened his eyes, thunked the back of his head against the wall, and slid down with weak legs until he was sitting on the undoubtedly filthy floor. Pressing his hot cheeks against his palms, he rocked back and forth a bit, trying to use the discomfort of the hard floor to get rid of his erection. It wouldn’t do at all to be seen outdoors with a raging stiffy, and if these people were prone to pressing their noses against the window, then Theo’s excuses might be for naught. 

Theo returned a few minutes later, heralded by some very cheerful whistling. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said, and extended a hand. Bill took it and let Theo pull him up. The man was _freakishly_ strong, and if he hadn’t had his feet firmly planted, Bill suspected that he would have popped right up off the floor. 

“How are we going to get out without going past everyone?” he asked. 

“There’s a back entrance right there.” Theo pointed his thumb farther down the hallway, past the bathroom. “It’s where I’m parked. Come on.” 

Bill followed him down the hallway and over to an industrial door that was probably several decades old. The EMERGENCY EXIT – ALARM WILL SOUND sign over the handle was faded and dusty, and Theo didn’t seem worried about it, although Bill spared a thought for the potential for humiliation if an alarm brought the entire Hillel contingent down here. Smirking, no doubt. 

Outside, the sun had set, and the air was cooling down from the earlier scorching temperature. “That’s my car,” Theo said, pointing to an impressively shiny midnight-blue one and holding out his keys. The car unlocked with a beep. “Want to sit in the front?”

“Sure.” Bill slid into the passenger seat and buckled himself in automatically – being a healthcare professional did wonders for one’s impetus to keep safe. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding since Theo first took him out of the social hall, but now his stomach was filled with butterflies as well, huge ones with wings flapping against the lining. 

When Theo got in and started the car, though, Bill remembered something that had him hitting himself in the forehead. “ _Shit!_ I forgot my dessert!”

“Danny’s taking care of it,” Theo said as he shifted into drive. “He said he’ll put it on your doorstep. Probably gonna eat about half of it, though, crafty bastard.”

“I don’t care, as long as I get it. I’ll need to send him some sort of thank-you card.” 

“Don’t.” Theo maneuvered the car into the light traffic passing by on the street. “He’ll be completely insufferable. Guy’s always going on about how nobody has manners anymore.”

“Well,” said Bill, “what would he do if I proved myself to have manners?”

“Probably gloat until the end of time. Someone with manners deigned to talk to _him_ , that kind of shit.” 

“You’re not very complimentary of someone you trust with your finances.” 

Theo shrugged. “Danny’s my friend, and yeah, I trust him. Doesn’t mean he’s not a total fucking ass sometimes.” 

Oh, that was entirely the wrong thing for him to have said. Just the word ‘ass’ put the ghost of the sensation of Theo’s arsecheeks into Bill’s fingers, and he shifted uncomfortably. What was wrong with him? “Will we be at your house soon?” he asked. 

“Why? You eager to get rid of me?” Theo gave Bill a brief glance, then broke into laughter. “Oh. Oh, _fuck_ , you can’t wait to get me into bed, right? You packin’ a giant boner in those ugly scrubs?”

“That’s not it at all, you self-centered bastard,” Bill snapped back. 

“Hey, don’t worry,” Theo said, reaching out and squeezing Bill’s thigh. Bill went absolutely rigid, both in his trousers and outside of them. “You’re not the only one. I think all the blood in my head is down in my dick right now.”

“Really? That’s flattering.”

“You better believe it. Fuck, you’re hot.” Theo’s voice seemed to slide several octaves down as he talked, down into a lovely sub-basement sort of area where everything was caramel and chocolate syrup. “I’m so hard right now, I can’t think straight.”

“I…I…” Bill was suddenly incapable of speech. “Um.” He gulped a few times and then tried again. “When you say things like that, it makes me want to get to your house faster.”

“So you can take care of it?” Theo winked. From the side, it was a little disconcerting, given the size of his nose. 

“No,” Bill said, “so I can tear your clothes off.”

He wasn’t looking at the speedometer, so there was no way to be sure, but Bill could have sworn that Theo accelerated by at least twenty miles per hour just then. “Fuck,” Theo grunted. “Don’t say stuff like that. I’m _driving!_ ”

Discretion, Bill decided, was probably the better part of valor – and the key to survival in an unfamiliar car. He kept his mouth shut as Theo drove his route with the familiarity of someone who had been living in the same place for at least a decade, and only spoke again when the car turned in to a long driveway leading to…“God, this place is _yours?_ ” he asked. 

“Yep.” Theo opened the driver’s-side door. 

“I thought your nephew said you’re a history professor,” Bill said. “Surely it doesn’t pay that well!” The house was huge to Bill’s flat-dwelling eyes, at least two large stories and an attic. It didn’t have any of those historical markers, but Bill had lived in Massachusetts long enough to be able to guess that Theo’s house had likely been built before the Revolutionary War – by wealthy scions of New England, no less. 

“I write textbooks,” Theo said, and shrugged. “It’s pretty lucrative.”

Not for the first time, Bill found himself abruptly considering academia. Of course, that meant he’d have to deal with students, and their questions about what it was _really_ like to deal with C-diff. It was bad enough to deal with it the first time around. Banishing _that_ thought, he shook his head and sized up the house. “Where did Phil fall?” 

“You gotta remind me?” Theo pointed. “Right there, on that fuckin’ rosebush.” The rosebush in question looked innocent, if a bit straggly, but Theo was glaring daggers at it, so Bill figured he ought to trust his judgment. 

“Well, your arm doesn’t seem to be giving you any problems,” he said. “Shall we go in and have at each other?”

That seemed to perk Theo right up, including the impressive bulge in his trousers. “ _Yes_. Lemme find my keys.” Bill stared unabashedly at the bulge while Theo searched his pockets, feeling his own prick beating in time with his heart so forcefully that he was momentarily worried about his zipper cutting off the blood supply. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this hard for someone else. 

“Ha! Got ‘em!” Theo held the keys aloft with as much triumph as if he’d found the Holy Grail, then bounded up the front steps and unlocked the door. Bill followed, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the front entranceway, much like the home in which he’d grown up, smelled strongly of old books. It was also pleasantly messy, evidence to which was provided by the umbrella stand that seemed to be full of confetti. 

The entranceway also had quite a bit of loose gray hair floating around. Bill blinked. “This house wasn’t ever the site of some historical ax murder, was it?”

“What?” Theo asked. Bill pointed wordlessly to the hair. “Oh, that? No, that’s just…oh, _there_ he is.” An enormous gray cat, far too stocky to have come in as silently as it had, appeared in front of them and gave a very plaintive meow. 

“Right,” Bill said, amused, watching Theo stoop and pick up the cat. It was shedding long gray fur all over his academic jacket, but he didn’t seem to care. This was undoubtedly the source of all the hair. “You didn’t mention having a cat.”

“You didn’t ask.” Theo kissed the cat’s head, making his beard mesh with its whiskers. “Who’s Daddy’s fat sack a’ crap? That’s you. You’re Daddy’s fat sack a’ crap.”

“Your _what?_ ” Bill couldn’t help himself. It was undoubtedly an automatic black mark on one’s decorum to criticize a prospective lover’s pets (or pet names), but he burst out laughing anyway. Emily Post could spin in her grave if she liked. “Did – did you just call him a fat sack of…” He couldn’t finish the sentence for giggling. Dimly, he heard the cat meow again, as if in agreement of how ridiculous the nickname was, and that just made him laugh harder. 

Theo was still holding the cat and petting it like he was a Bond villain when Bill got hold of himself. He was also wearing the expression of a Bond villain, and his cat looked just as disgruntled. “What?” he said. “Rug’s _my_ fat sack a’ crap. Yeah, he is.” He kissed the cat’s head again; it looked even angrier at the attention. 

“Rug,” Bill said. “Your cat’s name is Rug.” It took an absolutely staggering amount of effort not to start laughing again, but perhaps luckily for him, he sneezed instead. 

“You all right?” 

“Yes, just allergies.” 

“Fuck.” Theo set the cat down. “You need to go? I don’t have any Claritin or anything.”

“It’s all right, it’s just a slight reaction,” Bill answered, rubbing his nose. “I’m not terribly allergic. No anaphylaxis or whatnot.” Antihistamines wouldn’t hurt, but he doesn’t want to send Theo into a tizzy by telling him so, and this cat doesn’t seem to bother him terribly, anyhow. “Hello, Rug. You have a ridiculous name.” He knelt on the floor, patted the cat on the head very lightly in case the thing was a biter, and relaxed when it started purring again rather than attacking him. “He’s very soft!”

“Mm-hm.” Theo’s voice was fond, and as soft as his cat’s fur; Bill looked up to find him smiling. “He was a shelter stray. We’re good for each other. I feed him, and he keeps me from decaying.”

That surely spoke of some underlying issues right there, but hate himself for being selfish all he might, Bill was in no mood to address psychological torment right now. Later, perhaps; something was pulling him towards Theo more strongly than he’d ever been pulled before, more strongly than he’d felt the need to fight his family on coming to the States for his master’s degree and staying here. Somehow, he knew he wanted to stay with Theodor Derensky longer than one night, and he could hold his hand and comfort him further on down the line. Maybe it was the smell of old books. 

“Well, then,” he said, “we’d best find your bedroom and I’ll make sure you don’t even remember what decay is.”

“I’m up for that.” Theo took his hand and squeezed it. “My room’s upstairs.”

“Lead on, then,” Bill replied. 

Theo didn’t let go of his hand as he led him up a rickety wooden staircase – original style, at least, if not the original wood – to a long hallway and through the first door on the right. “My room,” he said, rather redundantly. Was he nervous? He didn’t seem so, but he also didn’t seem the sort to repeat himself. 

“Yes, I see,” Bill said. “It’s lovely.” And surprisingly non-smelly, for a bachelor’s bedroom. The four-poster bed had a darkly-stained frame that fit well with the general era of the house, and there was a beautiful quilt on top of the sheets (balled up and unmade, of course, but still beautiful). The walls, Bill noted with some amusement, were the same deep green as his own car. He would have guessed that Theo would go for a more emo option – black walls, maybe, or some sort of stone. 

“Yeah? You like it?” Theo walked in and sprawled a bit awkwardly on the bed, clicking on the bedside lamp. The shade lit up, revealing a beautiful, abstract design that only be woodcut; the green walls glowed with diamond-shaped expansions of the cutout pieces. 

“God,” Bill said, “that’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah.” Theo stroked the shade and sat up a bit, then took off his jacket and threw it on the floor. “Friend made it for me. She’s fuckin’ talented.”

“Obviously,” Bill said rather absently, sitting down on the bed and taking the opportunity to look around the room a bit more. No desk – maybe Theo did his paper-grading elsewhere – but there was a bookshelf stuffed with books, a dresser with a few pairs of what looked to be novelty boxers hanging out of a top drawer, and… “What on _Earth_ is that?” he asked, pointing. 

“You like?” Theo said, and snickered. “It’s great stress relief.”

“How is stabbing a photograph at all productive?” Bill asked. The photo on the wall was of a man with blue eyes (although not as bright as Theo’s) and long hair of the most eye-gougingly platinum shade he’d ever seen, and it was full of what looked like a bunch of dangerous knives with very ornate handles. 

“That’s Randy Morningwood.” Theo slid an arm around Bill’s waist. Bill jerked in surprise, but he let Theo pull him close to his warm, solid body. Goddammit, his erection had been momentarily distracted there, but now it was coming back in full force. “He’s a religion professor, and he’s the biggest ass to ever stifle a fart.”

“I can see why, if his surname is Morningwood,” Bill remarked. “I didn’t know it was a surname.” 

“It isn’t. His real name is Greenwood, but I hate that guy,” Theo said. “We co-authored a paper once. Never gonna repeat that mistake.” He shuddered, which only served to wrinkle his nose and make his hawklike face look endearing. 

“Why do you hate him?” Bill asked, stroking Theo’s arm. His sleeve had rolled up a bit when he took off his jacket, and his forearm was one of the hairiest Bill had ever seen. It was rather a good thing that that happened to trip his trigger; just thinking about how hairy the rest of Theo’s body must be made his cheeks flush all over again.

“Stick up his ass.” Theo held up his free hand and put down his thumb. “One of those militant atheists.” He put down his second finger. “Boston Brahmin.” Third finger. “No sense of humor.” He put down his fourth finger, then furrowed his brow. “That’s probably about it, except – fuck, right, he thinks he has better hair than I do.” He curled his pinky into his palm, then curled his hand into a fist. “And that’s why I throw knives at that pretentious-ass photo he has on his faculty page.”

“He sounds like a complete prat,” Bill said, “but I don’t think you brought me to your house to talk about him.”

“No,” Theo said, his voice thoughtful. “I really didn’t.” His mouth curved into a grin, half predatory and half an expression that made it look as if he wanted to eat Bilbo whole in a way that wasn’t cannibalistic. Bill gulped to see it. “Well?” 

“It’s your move.” Bill’s heart was hammering away, and he wasn’t sure that he would be able to make a move to kiss Theo without fainting dead away, and wouldn’t _that_ be a mood-killer? 

Theo solved that problem by grabbing Bill’s waist and kissing him even more thoroughly than he had at Hillel. This time, his mouth was hard and rough, his lips seeming desperate against Bill’s. Bill felt his own mouth open, and when it did, Theo’s tongue was immediately inside. 

Bill was sure he was making the world’s most embarrassingly aroused noises, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Theo’s beard was undoubtedly scraping his cheeks raw and red or that his own tongue occasionally hit Theo’s teeth. This was right. This was the best kiss he could ever remember having, and in a fit of boldness, he shakily brought his hands up between them to undo Theo’s button-down shirt. 

“I can get that,” Theo said hoarsely, and tore himself away from the kiss just long enough to undo his shirt, one of the buttons popping off when he pulled at it too hard. Bill pulled his scrub top over his head, and had barely gotten it off all the way when Theo was on him again. This time, the mat of black hair on his chest scraped against Bill’s nipples, and Bill whimpered against Theo’s mouth. 

“You like my pelt,” Theo said, a laugh caught between his lips and Bill’s. 

“Yes. _Yes_.” 

“Mmm…what about this?” Theo flicked one of Bill’s nipples with the tip of a long finger, making Bill cry out. Theo’s fingertips were heavily callused, and it almost hurt, but what hurt more was the distinct sensation that his trousers had just shrunk a size. 

“Oh, _God!_ ” He pressed up against Theo’s body and his undoubtedly magical hand. “You – you’re going to make me come.”

“Good,” Theo growled. “Pants off.” He reached down, and Bill felt his hands working to untie the drawstring of his trousers. Theo’s olive skin didn’t show the cherry-tomato blush that Bill’s English pastiness always did, but even so, his cheeks and forehead were pink. His eyes were mesmerizing, too, with dilated pupils and thick black eyelashes even more visible than usual against his skin. Bill didn’t need a nursing degree to know that Theo was very much aroused. 

“Yours, too,” he said, and undid the button and zipper of Theo’s trousers. The bulge inside was so pronounced that it pushed against his hand with every thrust of Theo’s hips; the one remaining brain cell in Bill’s prefrontal cortex piped up to wonder if, perhaps, Theo’s cock was correlated to the size of his nose. 

Theo’s breath hitched, and he shoved a hand down the front of Bill’s trousers. “Briefs?” he said, and chuckled. 

Bill’s eyes rolled back as Theo’s fingers bypassed his pants and moved to directly cup his prick. “ _Oh!_ Oh…that’s…that’s Y-fronts to you.”

“Real question is, _why_ are they still on.” Theo began to stroke the underside of Bill’s prick with two fingers, and Bill suddenly couldn’t think at all. “Holy shit, Bill.” He cupped his other hand around the back of Bill’s head and brought their foreheads together. “I need to fuck you.”

“Can’t,” Bill panted. Thankfully, he’d been a nurse long enough that the medical-professional part of his brain had bypassed rational thought and integrated itself into the wiring of his nervous system. “New – new partners. We’ve got to get tested.”

“What?” Theo’s unfocused gaze got a little sharper. “We don’t have to…there’s other ways to fuck.”

“Besides your penis in…” Bill trailed off and whimpered when Theo’s thumb stroked over the tip of his cock. “…fuck, in my arse?”

“Yeah.” Theo’s voice was even deeper than it had been after they’d first kissed, and Bill wasn’t sure he could take it if his voice got any sexier. “We can do the blood-testing shit later. I’m out of condoms."

“Right. Right.” _Think, you idiot,_ Bill chided himself. This could have been a test question, for fuck’s sake. Which sexual acts didn’t involve hazardous transmission of bodily fluids? “Er, do you want to rub off, then?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Theo said, closing his hands around both of Bill’s waistbands and yanking down. His trousers and pants came off to his knees, and Theo stared at his erection for long enough that Bill began to wonder if he was turned on or turned off. 

“Is everything all right?” he asked, a bit tartly. 

“Yeah,” Theo answered, “only I really wish I could suck you off.” And it seemed that Bill was right; Theo’s voice could get sexier, and he absolutely couldn’t handle it. He only heard that level of sheer raw want in his own voice when he was about to come, and even then, he had to keep it down. He was embarrassingly vocal when he came, and the walls of his flat were thin. 

“Next time,” he said. His voice came out in a quaver. “Trousers off.”

“Yes, _sir_ ,” Theo said with a grin. He pulled his own trousers and boxers (oversized, with a pattern of what looked like Santa Claus in sunglasses) down to his knees, and pulled Bill up against him, cock to cock, Bill’s head tucked under Theo’s chin. 

Bill wasn’t sure whose hips started to move first, but it felt so good that he couldn’t do anything but go along with the rhythm. He wrapped his arms around Theo, bringing them closer together as Theo’s hairy legs tangled with his. Theo’s hands migrated to his bare arse and squeezed hard, then squeezed again with every thrust they gave against each other. 

He could tell that he was getting close to a mind-melting climax when sweat began to drip down his chin and onto his chest. Theo was in the same condition, and things were rather messier farther down. Bill didn’t look; if he did, he was sure that he would come on the spot from the sheer appeal of it. He could already smell the salty, musky bitterness of Theo’s pre-come, and that alone was enough to make his head spin. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Theo grunted, digging his nails into Bill’s arse. “Fuck, I – gonna _come_ , Bill…” 

Bugger _him_. That voice, rough and desperate as that of a man begging for release after too many long, solitary dry years, was going to be the end of him. “ _Oh_ ,” he moaned. His thighs were stiff and cramping up from the effort of thrusting so many times. 

Then Theo cried out, and squeezed Bill so tightly that it hurt as he came. There was a split-second lull before the burst of warmth on Bill’s crotch and his lower belly, and Theo lowered his head to the junction of Bill’s neck and shoulder, biting down and giving broken whimper after whimper. 

Bill’s eyes squeezed shut, and he felt himself come so hard that every molecule in his body seemed to fall away from those around it. His mouth fell open, but he couldn’t hear or remember what he said, or why he’d said it. 

He would later be embarrassed to admit that that was when he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Motzi: the Hebrew blessing over bread, typically used to start a meal on Shabbat (and every day, in Orthodox households).  
> Mamzerim: Hebrew, meaning "bastards." The singular is "mamzer."
> 
> The chapter title is from Bilbo's bath song, by Tolkien. And, of course, the "go to hell" exchange is another repurposed Family Guy quote. :D
> 
> IDK if the phrasing is the same outside of the US, but just in case: "to pay cash" doesn't mean you put down a bunch of bills. It just means you can pay in full from your checking account at the time that you make the payment. I used to be very confused about that phrase. 
> 
> While Rug was invented a year and a half ago, the cat that I have now almost perfectly embodies him. Photo included. 
> 
> ETA: for those of you who prefer it, I'm on Tumblr as godihatethisfreakingcat. Sushi is wikdsushi.


	7. And Thy Speech is Comely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Saturday morning at the Derensky house, and there's an unexpected houseguest in Theo's bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning (for this chapter only): mentions of the Holocaust, PTSD from the Holocaust, and the physical and sexual abuse of young people that went on in the camps.

The sun streaming through the haphazardly-unrolled blinds on his bedroom window made Theo’s eyes blink open. “Ngh,” he grunted, and rolled over, taking inventory of his surroundings. There was a familiar weight on his feet: Rug, obviously, who had curled halfway up into a cat loaf at some point and was basking in the sunbeams, paws out and chin up. Everything else was present and accounted for. Arms, legs, clothes scattered everywhere, books in the usual state of messiness, and his bare pud hanging out. 

Wait. What the fuck? 

He boosted himself up on his elbows and looked down at the mess on his stomach, then gave a soft noise of relief and rolled into the comforting warmth of Bill Baggins’s arm wrapped under his back. Bill exhaled, but evidently wasn’t aware enough to wake up fully, although he did burrow his face into the curve of Theo’s neck and sling his other arm over his chest. 

Theo couldn’t help smiling. Now that he thought of it, there was a hazy memory in his awareness of stumbling around to go take a piss in the middle of the night, with the light of the lone streetlamp outside his house coming through the window. If he remembered – and he’d be the first to admit that his short-term memory could be shit – Bill had half woken up then, too, and reached for him. 

He did like cuddling. Vince had once called him “a weird M&M that has a really hard shell, so you break a tooth on it and just say ‘screw it’ and ignore the center, even if it’s really squishy and delicious,” but not even Vince with his weirdly-accurate powers of perception could predict exactly how squishy – or how cuddly – Theo was. 

Scooting closer, he kissed the top of Bill’s rumpled, curly hair and idly ran his finger through the sticky mess on his belly. Bad idea. “ _Ow_!” he yelped, and extricated his finger from his matted fur as painlessly as he could. It was definitely time for a shower. 

But before that, it was time for an ogle. Theo rested his weight on his elbows again and feasted his eyes on Bill, who was definitely an ocular version of the kind of Thanksgiving feast that would leave him full for days. His hair was sticking up in about fifteen different places, his soft belly was streaked with red marks where Theo’s pelt had rubbed against it, and his pants and underwear were still pulled down to his knees. Even sleeping, his face was furrowed into a frown. Fucking adorable. 

Theo smiled and pulled Bill’s pants all the way off, tossing them across the bed to land on top of his own. Bill mumbled something into the pillow and shifted as Theo pulled away, and Rug meowed indignantly at the loss of his cushion. “It’s okay,” Theo said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up. Why was Bill even more adorable from this angle? It was incomprehensible. “I’m gonna go shower. You need anything, the bathroom’s through the door next to the bookcase.”

“Mmphright.” Bill yawned and continued, voice deep and slurred, “I r’member.”

Theo snorted. “You sound drunk. Go back to sleep,” he said, and took the opportunity to plant another kiss before Bill woke up fully and realized he’d just fucked a sap. While he was at it, he grabbed Rug and smooshed his head, earning himself a hiss. “I don’t get no respect,” he said, philosophically if he did say so himself, and walked his bare ass over to the bathroom. 

As soon as he’d closed the door most of the way (open just enough to let Rug in if he needed to visit the litter box), he turned the shower water on and checked his reflection in the mirror while it warmed up. The lighting in here was fucking terrible, energy-efficient or no, and the silver in his disheveled black hair showed up a lot more sharply than he would have liked. For the love of God, he was only forty-one, and weren’t Mediterranean genes supposed to suppress aging? 

“No more burning the midnight oil,” he muttered at himself, and bared his teeth. His mouth was a cesspit of morning plaque, but it could wait. For now, he needed to clean his body hair before it turned into a giant dreadlock, and if Bill was still asleep afterwards, maybe he could get a little writing done while the day was still young (writing textbooks, _his ass_ \- that excuse would only hold up so long as Bill didn’t know how little that paid). Sticking a hand into the shower, he satisfied himself that the ancient pipes had warmed the water up, and got in. 

Thoughts of Bill plagued him as he rubbed a bar of soap against his loofah and set to scrubbing his lower abdomen. He grunted and shook his head when the memory intruded of Bill’s cock rubbing against his, and of Bill making those desperate little whining gasps the whole time. Maybe Bill wouldn’t be considered good-looking among people like his students, but Theo had been around the block a few more times than they had, even the promiscuous ones. His type was a body that spoke of enjoyment and comfort with every curve of stomach and smile. His type was no-nonsense, but definitely not where it wasn’t needed. Oh, God, last night had been nonsense of the sweetest kind. 

His type, it was probably safe to admit, was Bill Baggins. 

As Theo ran his fingers through the hair on his belly to make sure he’d gotten everything out, his fingertips bumped into the base of what was most certainly a growing erection. Experimentally, he cupped his hands around his balls and surprised himself with how loudly he groaned. Had he gotten hard just from the _thought_ of Bill? The guy had to be magic. 

He turned the shower off and frowned, tilting his head in the direction of the bedroom door and straining to hear. Nope, even with the door cracked open, he couldn’t hear any movement. It would probably be safest to double-check by looking, but he was dripping wet and it would be a giant pain to dry the floor after he opened the thick glass shower door. 

“Whatever,” Theo said aloud. He cracked a smile, turned the water back on, and leaned against the wall next to the shower head as he took his cock in his hand. What was he worried about, anyway? Jerking off wasn’t exactly offensive material, not after what he and Bill had done with each other. Bill seemed like a heavy sleeper anyway, if he could go back to sleep after Theo dragged his pants off. 

He closed his eyes and tightened the loose fist he’d made around his erection. Mm, it felt like he was already starting to leak. As his hips started moving back and forth, Theo rubbed the pad of his thumb across the head and moved his fist up and down. It pulsed in his hand, and he turned his head to the side, pressing his face into the cool, condensation-covered tile to stifle a moan. 

The water continued to rain down on him, and Theo found his feverish thoughts turning to Bill jacking off in _his_ shower. He gritted his teeth and thrust into his hand – did Bill have to content himself with quickies after his shifts, or did he take his time and make sure not to neglect those gorgeous, sensitive nipples? He’d made such a gorgeous face when Theo paid attention to one, and he hadn’t even flicked it hard. Suddenly, Theo wished he’d brought Bill into the shower with him now, if only to play with his chest until his face screwed up and he came all over them both. 

Theo’s hips were starting to move in sharp, jerky bursts that made his ass smack loudly, and lewdly, against the shower wall. If he wasn’t careful, his hipbones were going to bruise. Not like it mattered, though. It would be easy to pretend that Bill had made those marks, squeezing his ass and digging in his nails, breathing so hard that he was nearly snorting, and…

Theo’s head tilted upwards, and his mouth hung open, his eyes screwed so tightly shut that he saw starbursts. He could dimly hear his own deep, ragged breath over the sound of the water, which thankfully hadn’t yet gone cold. He was getting close, and he didn’t want some fucking temperature change to jerk him out of jerking off. “Ah, c-come _on_ ,” he grunted, and pushed his cock in and out of his grip. His voice was as shaky as his wobbly knees. Just a little more, and he’d be done for.

Bill’s voice, Bill’s mouth open, Bill’s body convulsing against his hard enough to make him faint when he came – “Fuck! _Bill!_ ” Theo’s entire back smacked into the shower wall and he spurted through the tight clutch of his fingers onto the tile floor. 

He stood there for a long time, letting his lungs calm down until semi-normal breathing resumed. “Mmmm,” he said, and rinsed off his hands. Touching himself, it turned out, was so much better when he had a real person waiting in bed to possibly do it to him again. Which maybe negated the whole point of touching himself, but his dick wasn’t really wired in to his ability to think. 

The shower water was still warm. Theo looked down to where his wet hair was plastered to his upper body and grabbed his shampoo. It would take at least eight hours for his hair to dry, but it was already drenched, so there wasn’t really a downside to making sure it didn’t stink of sex for the rest of the day. Besides (and the thought made him grin), it was at least possible that he was in a relationship now, and Bill seemed like the kind of guy who appreciated clean hair. 

He stepped out of the shower into the steamy bathroom a few minutes later, and immediately had to grab onto the towel rack to make sure he didn’t slip and make an idiot of himself. “The fuck?” Theo said. “How didn’t I hear you?” 

Bill stopped squinting into the fogged-up mirror and turned, taking his toothpaste-covered finger out of his mouth. Theo’s dick tried valiantly to twitch; if he hadn’t just whacked it, it probably would have been embarrassingly hard, just from him seeing Bill with white foam dripping off his fingers and out of his mouth. “You didn’t hear me?” Bill spat into the sink. “I could hear you quite well, er, if you know what I mean.” His face went pink, but his expression was somewhere between devious and smug. 

Theo rolled his eyes. “You can say it, you know. You heard me jackin’ off.” He took his towel off the rack and sniffed it, then wrapped it around his head. The smell of mildew was kind of gross, but he prided himself on being a lazy bastard on his days off, and it wasn’t worth the walk to the linen closet for a dry towel. 

“Yes. And you said my name, didn’t you?” Bill turned on the faucet, ducked both hands under the water, and brought a handful to his mouth. “I could have sworn I heard my name,” he continued after he’d gargled and spat. 

Theo shrugged. Shame was for the weak. “You’re hot,” he said. “And how long have you been in here?”

“Only a minute or two before you got out,” Bill said, “but I could hear you in your bedroom. It woke me up.”

“Wait, I _woke you up?_ I couldn’t even hear myself over the water.”

“Yes, well, the water was loud, too. That ought to tell you something.” Bill wiped his mouth on the hand towel hanging on a hook by the sink. Theo had fond memories of that hook, being as it was one of the first things he’d successfully forged after his lessons at the Village. Of course, he’d probably have better memories of the hand towel now. He didn’t care if it made him seem like a teenager, but he was _never_ going to wash that thing. 

“Do you want to make out?” he asked. 

Bill’s hand spasmed, and the hook went through the hand towel. “What,” he sputtered, “ _here?_ ” 

“You got something against bathrooms?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Bill said, putting his hands on his hips and lifting his chin. A sudden urge to kiss the indignant expression right off his face came over Theo, but he ignored it. It wasn’t worth the risk of getting his lips bitten off. “Bathrooms are disgusting.”

“Jesus F. Lipschitz.” Theo rolled his eyes. “You’re kidding.”

“I am not.” Bill folded his arms. “If you want to kiss, we’re going to go to your bed and kiss like human beings.” He wrinkled his nose, and turned away to sneeze. 

Theo grinned. “Human beings and Rug, huh?”

“Oh, _bother_ you.” Bill scowled, then sneezed again. “This is normal for me, all right? I get…er, morning sneezes.”

“As opposed to what?” Theo asked. “Morning wood?”

“You’re an absolute scream.” Bill wiped his nose. “Come on, I ought to make you breakfast.”

“You cook?” Not that he should have been at all surprised, Theo thought. Bill was already a living, breathing embodiment of the best stereotypes of homebody culture, so why should this have been any different? “Are you any good?”

“I beg your pardon, but even the most persnickety of my cousins have begged for my recipes,” Bill replied. He raised an eyebrow. “Are you implying I’m not up to the challenge of feeding you?”

“Nah,” Theo said, although he did wonder how amusingly puffed-up Bill would get if he said yes. “I just don’t usually eat breakfast.”

“Let’s go downstairs, then, and I’ll change your – wait.” Bill looked down at his penis, as if he were just realizing it was there. “Do I need to put on trousers?”

Theo shook his head. “My neighbors hate me,” he said. “They think I’m a menace. Nobody ever looks through my windows.”

“I’m…not sure if that’s good or bad,” Bill said, _sotto voce_. “Right. Downstairs. I’ll have a look through your cupboards.”

“Kickass,” Theo said, not entirely sarcastically for once, and led Bill downstairs to the kitchen, trailed by the cat. Bill started opening and closing cabinets, and Theo took that as his cue to get a can of Rug’s favorite wet food and dump it into his bowl. Rug _meer_ ed and set to slurping, which – as always – made Theo grin like a loon. Cats were hilarious. 

Bill, meanwhile, had begun a running commentary of the inventory of Theo’s cabinets as soon as he set eyes on the contents. “Oatmeal’s out, you haven’t got any…right, maybe I could – Theo, how long has this Karo syrup been in here?”

“I have Karo syrup? Wait. What _is_ Karo syrup?”

“You’re hopeless,” Bill said, his voice still muffled from within the depths of the pantry. “I see Lucky Charms in here. You said you didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Yeah, but that’s not breakfast food. That’s dinner.” For a bachelor, anyway. Dee gave him the same kind of hell whenever she came over. “Besides, they’re made with the blood of leprechauns.”

“Your mind goes to the most disturbing places I’ve ever heard,” Bill remarked. 

“’Disturbing’ is my middle name,” Theo said, stooping to pet Rug over the protests of his weirdly-slept-on back, “so don’t wear it out.” Rug looked up from his food and gave Theo a look that seemed to say that the bits of smoked salmon dripping off his whiskers were the only reason he kept Theo around, then gave a snort and obligingly wound around his legs for a few seconds. 

“ _Agh!_ ” 

Theo jerked his head around so fast that he nearly gave himself whiplash, only to see Bill holding up a brown, squashed piece of fruit with a look of absolute disgusted horror on his face. “Theodor, this banana is disgusting!”

Time to have a little fun, and maybe pull the stick out of Bill’s ass while he was at it. “That’s a banana?”

“You presumably bought the thing,” Bill said in a measured tone, “so you have to know – oh, for the love of God, why am I arguing with you? I ought to just throw this in the garbage.”

“Right there,” Theo said, pointing to the trash can. 

“Thanks _ever_ so.” Bill tossed out the banana and then stuck his head back into the closest cabinet. “At least you’ve got…is this flour or sugar?”

“Probably sugar. I don’t really use flour.” Dee was the cook in the family. Forrest had known how to cook, too, and probably would have outstripped all of them, but then again, you never really knew the extent of your brother’s potential when he died at eighteen. As it always did, the stray thought made Theo’s throat tighten up. Forrest would have loved watching this situation, and agnostic as Theo was, he didn’t even have the comfort of believing in a possibility that Forrest still _could_. His kind of Judaism didn’t always lend itself to belief. 

“Ha!” Bill emerged from the cabinet with a yellow box clutched tight in one hand. “You’ve got Bisquick! I can…” He stopped short, and his face fell. “Goodness, Theo, what’s wrong?”

“I…” Theo choked out. He swallowed hard and tried again. “I was thinking about my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“Had,” Theo corrected. “He would’ve loved you. Always on my case about not dating, being too serious, shit like that.”

Bill set the box down, his expression full of concern. “Oh, Theo, I’m sorry.” He wrapped his arms around Theo’s waist, resting his head against his chest, and Theo felt some of the knot in his throat ease. “How did he die?”

Theo rested his head on Bill’s shoulder. “He joined the IDF when he was eighteen and stepped on a land mine.”

Bill’s entire body shuddered, but whether it was in horror or sympathy, Theo couldn’t tell. “God, that’s awful. What a thing to go through. Were you all…all right after?”

“No.” And then he was spilling out the one piece of human history he barely told anyone: not friends, not boyfriends, not colleagues, certainly not one-time sex partners. Yet here he was, clinging to Bill and telling him the life story that, God, the hard exterior was supposed to _prevent_ coming out. “It killed my dad. He had Alzheimer’s already, didn’t remember jack shit about anything, but when he heard about Forrest, it just…he was gone in a few months.”

“Theo…”

He took a deep, shivering breath. “My father survived Buchenwald. Mama was in Ravensbrück. I had to watch Papa go back and relive it all over again. His – his father got beaten to death in front of him. Theodor Derensky the first. I’m named after him, and the fucking kapo who killed him was named Azzo, which is the most ridiculous fucking name I’ve ever heard.” Theo squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears slowly came down anyway. “That’s the only funny thing about it. I gotta focus on that so I don’t blow my brains out, sometimes.”

“Your parents were Holocaust survivors.”

“Do I have to repeat it?” Theo snapped. Immediately, Bill went stiff in his embrace, and he felt his chest squeeze tight all over again. Mama always said he couldn’t treat people like that, and she’d know, because she was married to a man who practically defined ‘lashing out at other people.’ The darkness inside Papa had been frightening, and yet she dealt with it. She ameliorated it the best she could. She was a survivor; what was his excuse? “I’m sorry, Bill –“

“No,” Bill cut in firmly. “Don’t ever be sorry, Theo. You and your family have lived through…I’m sure I’ve seen documentation that it _did_ kill people, the survivor’s guilt. Keep talking.” He began to rub Theo’s back, his palms slow and sure. 

“Is that a nurse’s order?” Theo chuckled, but felt his voice break halfway through. 

“Consider it that.”

“From the desk of Rachel Derensky,” he mumbled into Bill’s shoulder. Jesus, he hadn’t said that in years, not since Mama’s funeral. 

“Hm?”

“You sound like my mom,” Theo said in explanation. “She was a child psychologist. Worked with other survivors’ kids. I used to say that to her whenever she got too detached with us, and let Papa – I mean, she didn’t _let_ him, but he wasn’t…”

Bill’s hands stilled. “Wasn’t what, Theo? Was he abusive?”

“ _No!_ ” Not with what he’d been through. Eleven, he’d been _eleven_ when he was thrown into a camp like an animal. Thrown in, worked until his back nearly broke, and left to survive disease and degradation and being kicked in every possible way. _Ja, ja, ich bin_ , Tuvia Derensky used to scream at night in the broken German that Mama said he’d had to learn in Buchenwald. _Yes, I am_ , he cried into the darkness while Theo held Forrest and Dee as tightly as he could. _I am, I am a filthy Jew_. 

“Theo?” Bill’s gentle voice came to him, as if from far away. “Theo, are you with me?”

“Huh?” Theo blinked and rubbed his eyes on Bill’s shoulder. “I just…my dad…” His jaw involuntarily clenched. “He wasn’t abusive,” he said, voice a little stronger now. “He was hurt. There’s a difference. He never did anything to hurt us, but sometimes he just said things that scared the hell out of us.”

“Like what?” Bill’s hand migrated up to Theo’s neck, under the fall of his wet hair, and massaged. “Did he tell you graphic details?”

“Nah,” Theo said, and reached down to pinch Bill’s ass, eliciting an indignant squeak. He was beginning to feel much more like himself. “But he said stuff like if he’d been as loud as us when he was a kid, the Nazis would have found him and killed him. I mean, it was technically true.”

Bill pulled back and looked Theo steadily in the eyes. “Did that make your brother suicidal?”

“Never. Forrest was the liveliest person I ever knew.” And the most annoying. “You know the movie Animal House, right? The thing Bluto did with his face?”

Bill frowned in concentration. “What,” he said after a few seconds, “being a zit?”

“Yeah, that.” Theo grinned. “Forrest used to do that whenever we went out for Chinese food. The second Mama and Papa turned their backs, he filled his cheeks up and…” Theo blew out a mouth-fart. “All over everything. Dee would get so mad.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope. You think Vince is bad? Forrest was worse.” Theo shook his head at the flood of memories. “Forrest wasn’t suicidal, he just cared too much. School wasn’t for him, but he really wanted to help people, so as soon as he graduated high school, he made Aliyah.”

“What’s that?”

“Sorry, I keep forgetting you’re not Jewish.” He’d never imagined spilling his guts to a non-Jew, not about the camps and Papa and losing half his family at twenty, the black funeral suit that was tucked away in his closet stained with his own tears and Dee’s. “Means he moved to Israel. He joined the IDF right out of high school and then…” He shrugged. “He came back in pieces.”

“That’s…” Bill’s mouth worked for a few seconds, words obviously failing him. “That’s horrifying, and I’m so sorry you had to experience it.”

“It was worse for Mama,” Theo heard himself saying. It felt so weird and so colossally _wrong_ to reveal this, almost like he was cheapening her memory to make her anything but stronger than steel. “Papa and Forrest dying just about killed her, too. She only lasted eight years after they died.”

“What was the official cause of death?” Bill asked. 

“Congestive heart failure,” Theo said. “She was nine when she got sent to the camps, and it fucked up her metabolism.” And her psyche. There had been things that Dee had told him after Mama’s funeral that he would never tell another human being, not even Bill. Mama and Papa had met in a DP camp at the end of the war, but they’d simultaneously been in Buchenwald for a short time when the transports of women came over from Ravensbrück. The reason they brought the women over…well, Theo wished he’d never learned it. If the war had lasted any longer, Mama would have been forced through the full parade of horrors, ten years old or not. 

“Probably marasmus,” Bill said, nodding his head knowledgeably. “Have you heard of it?”

“Yep. You read a lot of weird shit when you study history.” Not that he’d looked at photos of marasmus sufferers too long, though. Their wizened, tortured bodies made his stomach twist up into knots. 

Bill leaned in and gave him another hug. “Do you feel up to having something to eat?” he said into the curve of Theo’s shoulder. 

“I think so,” Theo said, and pulled away to poke himself in the stomach. Obligingly, it growled. “Yep, my stomach’s making evil noises.”

“Good!” Bill put his hands on his hips and smiled. “Given the state of your cupboards, I know this might be too much to ask, but have you got any eggs? Eggs that weren’t expired two months ago yesterday?”

“Yes, you fuckin’ fussbudget,” Theo said through a laugh. His eyes tracked the movements of Bill’s round ass as, along with the rest of him, it bounced all the way to the fridge. 

“These look fine,” Bill said after he’d spent an annoying amount of time visually, tactilely, and (from the looks of it) olfactorily inspecting the eggs. “Where are your pans? And a spatula. And I’ll need some oil as well.”

That was the wrong thing to say to a naked guy, especially if you were another naked guy. If Theo had had a book to hand, he would have shoved it in front of his crotch. “Pans and stuff are in the drawers under the stove. Oil…” Damn, he had to think about that. Did he even have any? His cooking repertoire was pretty much limited to pasta, more pasta, and those bags of frozen vegetables when his digestive system decided it had had it up to here with his habits. “Just a second.”

It took a lot of rummaging while Bill clanged various kitchen implements together, but he eventually found a half-full bottle of safflower oil, old enough that its cap had some kind of crust gluing it down. “This is the best we’re gonna do,” Theo said, holding the bottle up and wiggling it. “Take it or leave it.”

Bill made a face. “I’ll take it, but I’m not going to like it.” He sighed. “Then again, if I’m going to go down that rabbit hole, I really ought to consider how old that Bisquick is, and if I do that, I won’t want to cook pancakes at all.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to do that,” Theo agreed. “I really don’t have any other food.”

Bill held up a hand, palm out, and wiggled his fingers. “Just shut up and give that here.” 

Theo obliged, and within a few minutes, Bill had whipped up a bowlful of batter while his largest pan preheated on the stove. “Wait,” Theo said as Bill was raising the bowl to pour some batter out. “You need an apron.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re cooking with _heat_ and I don’t want you to burn your grundle off,” Theo answered. “I’m kind of attached to it now.” 

Bill made a dismissive noise, but it seemed to be in amusement, not annoyance. “My _grundle_ will be fine, but thanks for your concern,” he said. “I suppose that means you actually have an apron hidden away somewhere?”

“You forget, I’m friends with Benny Budin.” Theo opened a drawer next to the sink and pulled out the one apron he owned: bright red, with ruffles at the bottom and “My nuts are down here” emblazoned in fabric paint. Benny, although not the most artistic of people, had added a fairly accurate depiction of a bag of walnuts next to the text. “Got it,” he said, holding it up with his best shit-eating grin. 

Bill squinted. “My eyes _have_ to be deceiving me.”

“Nope.” Theo flapped the apron and tied it around Bill’s waist for him. “Here you go, champ.”

“At least it’s not got pasties as an accessory,” Bill muttered towards the pan as he poured in two big rounds of batter. “That would be a massive fire hazard.”

Theo held his chin between his thumb and forefinger and put on his best pretending-to-think face. “You know, Benny did train as an architect for a while. I bet he could rustle up some material.”

“Perish the thought. Pasties would look terrible on me.” Bill experimentally prodded the edge of a pancake with a spatula and shook his head. “No, it’s not ready yet. But as I was saying, have you taken a good hard look at me lately? I’m not exactly magazine material.”

“Because you’re not thin,” Theo said. No point in beating around the bush. He’d known people who did (Danny Reisberg tended to be the worst offender, in his opinion) and it was just annoying, so better to say the words and have done with it. 

“Exactly.” Bill flipped the pancakes. “I’m a bit of a fat bastard, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“No, Benny Budin is a fat bastard, and he still beat Vince in the Boston Marathon.” Theo put his hands on Bill’s bare shoulders and began to rub the warm skin. “And I’m not skinny, either. Neither is Dee. We don’t fat-shame in my family.”

Bill pressed his back up against Theo’s chest, slumping a little in seeming relaxation. Theo hadn’t even realized he’d stiffened up. Was Bill’s body image really so terrible? Poor guy. “That does make me feel a bit better,” he said. “Thank you, Theo.”

“Mention it any time,” Theo said. He blurbled the curve of Bill’s neck, which got him a very satisfying yelp and pressed Bill’s ass into parts known and loved. 

“Don’t make me burn the pancakes!” Bill said. He took the two sizzling pancakes out of the pan and deposited them on a paper towel, then poured two new ones in. “How old are you, Theodor?” he asked when he’d finished, in an extremely shirty tone. “Four?”

“Nah, I’m at least seven.” Theo grabbed a pancake and bit into it. His fingertips and tongue screamed in pain, but it was totally worth it – how long had it been since he’d had pancakes? There was that time they went out for Caleb’s tenth birthday breakfast, but that was…fuck, had to be six months ago. 

Bill whacked his hand, thankfully not with the hot spatula. It still hurt, though. “Enough of that!” he scolded. “You’ll stay out of those until they’re finished. I didn’t rummage through the most stereotypical man-cupboards of my entire existence to have you annihilate the results.”

Theo pulled his hand away and gave Bill puppy eyes. “I can’t even finish this one?”

“No.” Bill took the pancake and put it back on the paper towel. “And don’t think you can weasel your way into getting an extra by biting that one, either. I’ve swapped saliva with you already and I shall be eating that as part of my fair share.”

“Well, fine,” Theo said, with just enough whine injected into his voice that (he hoped) he sounded petulant, but not as bad as Phil. “If that’s the way you’re gonna be about it, I’ll go sit on the couch.” He wagged his ass in Bill’s direction, just for the chaser, then turned back to make sure he hadn’t come across as actually angry. “You know where the living room is, right?” Bill shook his head. “Just through that doorway.”

“Got it.” Bill nodded. “I’ll come in when these are finished.”

Theo scooped up Rug and carried him into the living room, then plunked them both down on the couch. Dee hated the couch; it was an old blue corduroy thing that she said looked like it had come from a rummage sale (it had), and it was so squishy that she fell backwards against the headrests whenever she sat down on it. That happened to be precisely the reason Theo liked it, though, and he made good use of the squishiness by sprawling across it now. Rug dug his claws into his belly and curled up for a good catnap. 

About five or ten minutes of petting Rug later, Bill came in with enough pancakes to feed the entire population of Hillel. “Taking a nap, are we?” he said, sitting down on the couch with a slight _oof_. 

“We _were_ taking a nap. Rug, off.” When Rug refused to listen, Theo lifted him off and managed to get himself into a sitting position by digging his elbows into the couch cushions and using that as leverage. “Those smell awesome,” he said. 

“You know damn well that they taste as good as they smell,” Bill replied. He held up the pancake that Theo had bitten into and, with a mischievous smile, licked it on both sides. “This is mine now.”

“Ew,” Theo said with as much disgust as he could muster up, and took a pancake that didn’t have some immature asshole’s spit all over it. He had to admit, Bill had talent. Even with a box of mix that had been in there God only knew how long, the pancakes were perfectly browned on both sides and were fluffier than the ones you got at a diner. 

“Good, yeah?” Bill asked, biting into his annexed pancake. Theo was relieved to see that Bill apparently had no issues about talking with his mouth full. 

“Yeah,” he answered in kind, then swallowed. “Should’ve been a chef or something. You missed your calling, Bill – Rug, fuck off!” Far from actually going away, Rug had migrated to his thighs and was making a nuisance of himself with loud, insistent meows. “You want pancakes too, huh?”

Bill noisily chewed another piece of pancake, bringing his count up to infinity plus one little imperfections that made Theo’s heart melt like a box of chocolates in a hot car. “He’s certainly a perseverant bugger, isn’t he?”

“Yep,” Theo said. He tore off a piece of his pancake and held it up to Rug, whose whiskers perked up right away. “Hey, floofball, come get it before I change my mind.”

“Oh, no. _No_. You are not feeding my pancakes to a cat,” Bill protested, but luckily for a certain floofball, there was nothing he could do about it. Rug had the pancake in his mouth and was already making that hysterical _smek smek smek_ noise that pets did when they were completely and utterly confused by a new food. 

Theo snorted. “Good boy,” he said. Rug rubbed the side of his furry face against his fingers. “Even better boy.”

“He’s going to have horrific constipation,” Bill said, “and I’m going to be right here to say that I told you so.”

“No, he’s not. He has his wet food and a bowl of water.” Theo smushed Rug’s face between his hands and kissed the top of his head. “That’s a good boy who likes pancakes. Are you gonna be a farty boy later? I bet you are.”

“You know, of all the people who would use baby talk with your pets, I’d put you near the bottom of the list,” said Bill. “Especially since your living room is so masculine – what is _that?_ ” He leaped up off the sofa and positively ran over to Theo’s bookcase. “You’ve got the entire set of T.D. Darrens!”

“I think a lot of people do,” Theo said as noncommittally as he could. Fucking hell, was he coming up on another moment of truth here? Was Bill even trustworthy with this kind of information? For the love of Pete, the whole reason he wrote incognito was because he’d spontaneously combust if he had to deal with the typical lifestyle of the rich and harassed. _Danny_ took his author photos, and Theo still insisted on having a hat over his face the whole time. 

“These are first editions, Theo!” Bill squatted down and examined the titles on the bottom two shelves. “And you’ve got… _The Souls That Remain?_ ” He pulled out one of the books and his jaw dropped. “Is this an advanced reader’s copy of _Oma’s Shoes_ , or have I died and gone to book heaven?”

“Your choice, but I’d say book heaven.” _Moment of truth. Moment of truth._ Theo could feel himself starting to sweat, and it took every bit of effort he could muster to keep his voice even. Were his fucking bookcases going to topple possibly the best relationship he’d had in years, and all before he even learned Bill’s middle name? 

“Oh my _God_.” With all the reverence of some religious whackjob who’d just discovered the Holy Grail, Bill pulled out a thin book, almost a pamphlet, and held it up to the light (in this case, the sun coming through the dusty blue curtains). “You have the _charity short stories_. Do you have any idea how much this goes for on eBay?”

$30,000 minimum, and that wasn’t counting the fraudulent lots that Danny and his paralegal had to deal with. “A lot?”

“Yes, a lot, and yours are all in perfect condition.” Bill shook his head. “I don’t believe this. My copies have got pages stuck together in indelicate places, and yours...” It was gorgeous, how red he got when he was embarrassed. “How do you keep these in mint?”

“It helps,” Theo said, “if you don’t read them.” He was doing this. Jesus F. Lipschitz on a fucking Kaiser roll, he was really doing this. 

“Why on Earth would you put down money for things like this if you’re not going to read them?” Bill demanded, hands on hips. 

Theo shoved an entire pancake in his mouth, both to buy himself some time and to get the last of a good thing while he could. If Bill ran out of the house screaming, if he went running to the press, if he refused to see him again, at least he’d have tasted his cooking. He couldn’t chew forever, though, and eventually he swallowed and rested his head against Rug’s fur. “Because,” he said, “I already wrote them.”

The silence that greeted him was a good excuse to give Rug kisses on his back and thus avoid Bill’s eye, so Theo availed himself of the opportunity. Meanwhile, Bill still hadn’t said a word since he dropped the proverbial punch-bowl turd. Had he fainted dead away? There hadn’t been any thumping, but then, he _was_ closer to the ground than Theo was. 

He looked up and dared a glance in Bill’s direction. No, Bill hadn’t fainted. His mouth _was_ hanging open, though, and he didn’t look far off swaying right onto the floor. “Sit your ass down before you pass out,” Theo said, and winced when that came out a hell of a lot meaner than he’d intended it to sound. 

“ _You_ ,” Bill said. His voice was low and more than a little unsteady. 

“Yeah, I…what?” Theo found himself wishing that he kept pepper spray around. Bill was starting to look disturbingly like some of the homicidal maniacs out of the whoppers Dwight had heard from his buddies at the police academy. “Finish the sentence.”

Bill’s mouth worked a few times, forming the outlines of words that Theo couldn’t quite fill in. “How,” he finally said faintly, “has no one ever worked that out? For a pseudonym, it’s not very subtle.”

Theo’s fluttering heart suddenly slammed into a more normal rhythm. It made his head spin, and he shook it to clear the bats out of the belfry. “That’s what you’re focusing on?” he asked, daring to crack a smile. “First of all, I’m very skilled at the art of hiding in plain sight. Second, people are morons. Third, my middle name doesn’t start with D, so that throws people off the scent.”

“What…what _is_ your middle name, then?” Bill said. The color was starting to come back into his face. 

“Shlomo,” Theo told him. “Don’t go spreading that around. I hate it.”

“Theodor…” Bill murmured. He set the book down on the edge of a shelf and wobbled back to the couch on the least steady legs Theo had seen since his infrequent party nights at college. “Theodor Shlomo Derensky.” He chuckled and took his head in his hands. “Could you sound any more Jewish?”

“Possibly, but then I’d be a stereotype.” Theo patted his back. It was shivering, which probably wasn’t good, but the one medical professional in the room seemed to be in the middle of said breakdown and, obviously, couldn’t give his input. “Phil already gets enough crap because he has Tuvia for a middle name.”

“After your father?” 

“Yup. Dee probably would’ve used Rachel, but their house turned out to be a sausage fest.”

Bill gave a rather hysterical-sounding giggle. “Sausage.” He thunked his head down to his knees. “God, I’m sorry, I never expected…” A strange sound, half hiccup and half cough, came out of his mouth. “You’re my favorite writer, Theo. Absolute favorite. I’ve wanked off to your books more times than I can count.”

“Uh.” Was this another pepper-spray situation? 

“Fuck, fuck, was that too much?” Bill said quickly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nah, I just kind of got that from the ‘pages stuck together’ bit,” Theo replied. “Look. Bill…” He swallowed. This – he didn’t even know how to classify what he was about to say next. There was no cliché strong enough to describe the fact that he opened his mouth and said “I can’t be in a relationship with you if the books are going to get in the way.”

“You want a relationship with me?” Bill’s mouth fell open again. 

“God, yes. _God, yes_.” Theo grabbed Bill’s hand and squeezed it as hard as he could, which was hard enough to make Bill wince. “You’re _neshamah_ , Bill. Hebrew for ‘soul,’” he elaborated at the sight of Bill’s furrowed brow, “and ‘breath.’ It’s one of those Biblical concepts that gets so fucking overused, I want to punch a wall whenever I hear it at someone’s wedding.”

A light came on in Bill’s eyes. “Does that mean ‘soul mate’?”

“Yeah.” Theo lightened his grip on Bill’s hand, but he still held it tightly. “I never wanted the stupid books to define me. You know how old I was when I wrote the first one? I was in _college_ , and I was doing the fucking angst thing where I wrote a Holocaust novel. Rite of passage, right? One of my professors knew a guy, and next thing I know, I’m a household name.” It had actually happened over a few years, but the Cliffs Notes version took a lot less time to say. 

“Probably more of a _write_ of passage,” Bill said, and tinked an imaginary cymbal. 

Holy shit, all that and a sense of humor, too. Theo had to laugh, and ended up surprising himself with how intense of a belly laugh it ended up being. Relief, maybe, or just more fear disguised as his usual brand of sarcasm. “God,” he said in a sudden, humiliating landslide of self-awareness, “now I’m the one who sounds like a creep. I met you _last week_.”

“Theo.” Bill patted his hand. “Please calm down. All you did was give me a bit of clichéd nonsense about love at first sight. It’s not as though you asked me to marry you, is it?”

“No, of course not.” Just in case, though, Theo let go of Bill’s hand and saw, with some relief, that Bill didn’t draw it away. He’d let the ‘clichéd nonsense’ thing slide. “I just…I think we _could be_ that. If you wanted to try a relationship. Not that…not that…” Theo trailed off with a grunt of frustration and pulled his fingers through his hair. He wrote bestselling novels as a fucking day job and he couldn’t force out the words to accurately describe his own romantic history, how pathetic was that? 

“I’ve had shitty luck with relationships,” he finally said. Good enough. “The first time I ever did a guy, it was a couple years before Papa died. I went on a trip to England just to get away from my fucking house, and I ended up fucking my host student’s brother.”

“How old were you?” 

“Eighteen.”

This time, Bill took his hand and squeezed it. His hands were warm and dry, not nearly as callused as Theo’s own hands, but all the more perfect for it. “Your life has just been colored by your family’s fucking tragedies,” he said in a soft tone, “hasn’t it?”

Theo couldn’t help snorting. “Yeah, and you have a filthy mouth.”

“Says the man who howled so profanely over three shots in the arse that my supervisor had to ask him to calm down!” Bill echoed Theo’s snort, then shook his head. “Is that what you’re trying to say? We’ve known each other a week and you hated me for most of it?”

Theo blinked. That was _exactly_ it, and either he was completely transparent, or nursing gave people super-ninja-people-reading powers. “Yeah.”

“A thought,” Bill said, “is different from an action. And for your information, wanking to someone’s writing does not a stalker make. Would you, I don’t know…” He tapped his chin. “Would you want to have sex with Jean Auel, even if some of her scenes are worthy of masturbation?”

Theo made the most disturbed face he could. From the look on _Bill’s_ face, it did the job. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but her sex scenes are fucking terrible.”

“Well!” Bill made a noise that, honest to God, could be classified as a harrumph. “I’m just as gay as you are, Theo, and I happened to like some of them.”

“It’s not because they’re straight sex scenes. You gotta remember some of the stuff I’ve written.” Bill blushed, so that was definitely a yes. “It’s because she doesn’t know how to write sex scenes that aren’t straight out of a Harlequin.” Theo held his hands out a foot apart. “Jondalar and his amazing Dino-Dong –“

“All right, _stop_.” Bill put his hands out as if in surrender, his eyes screwed shut in what was probably disgust. Theo couldn’t blame him, because there was some brain bleach-worthy material in that series for sure. “I’ve got the point.” He hooked his arm through Theo’s and leaned his head against Theo’s shoulder. 

“So I didn’t scare you off?” Theo ventured. 

“Absolutely not. I’ve seen far, far worse.”

“Good.” Time to go whole hog. “Because there’s something else.” 

“Oh, shite.” Bill tensed up a little. “You’re not going to tell me you used to be a trained assassin, are you?”

“No. Close, though.” Quickly, upon seeing the look in Bill’s eyes, Theo continued. “I’m a reenactor. You know Lexington Village?”

“What, the place where they take the bored elementary-school children?”

Theo stifled a groan. Field trips were the worst. “Yeah, exactly. I know how to use a forge and cool shit like that. On the weekends, I’m a fake rabbi over there.” He steeled himself for the inevitable laughter and said, “I go by Chaim Rabinowitz.”

“Forge – oh! Yes, I remember!” Bill’s face broke into a wide smile. “Last week, when I came to Hillel. You mentioned something about a forge, and an apprentice, and –“

“And he set me on fire,” Theo broke in. “Yep, I remember. That kid singed my hair off.” It still burned him up (metaphorically) to think about it, even years later. That had been the last time the kid came for a lesson, which didn’t say very complimentary things about his drive. A little fire couldn’t scare away a real smith. “You know how long it takes to get my hair this long?”

“Too long.” Bill ran his hand through his own short curls. “I can’t even imagine.”

“Don’t even try.” Theo rested his cheek on Bill’s head. “I’d invite you, but they’re sticklers for accuracy over there. We’d probably get put in the stocks for crimes against nature.”

Bill chuckled, the rumbles of which Theo could feel even through his beard and Bill’s hair. “Then let them,” he said. “I’d like to visit, Mr. Man of Many Secrets. Possibly watch you unveil more hidden talents while I’m there.”

Theo lifted his head and kissed Bill’s cheek like the romantic douche that his feelings seemed to be intent on dragging out of him. “I’ll find you some breeches.”

There was a rustle of fur between them, and Theo jerked away from Bill to look right into the face of his extremely guilty cat, who had toppled the pancake platter and currently had a whole pancake sticking out from between his fangs. “ _Busted_ ,” he said triumphantly. There was just something incredibly satisfying about beating the furry little food burglar at his own game. 

“He knows he did wrong,” Bill said, shaking a reproving finger at Rug. Rug gave a muffled meow through his mouthful of booty and, to Theo’s massive surprise, jumped into Bill’s lap. The asshole never liked anyone except him, but a new guy elicited that kind of response? “Claws,” Bill squeaked as Rug started to knead. “Oh, oh god, CLAWS!”

Yeah, that was a more typical response. 

“I’ll get the catnip mouse,” Theo said with a sigh that was more fake than not, and deposited Rug on the floor. It would probably be a good idea to check his answering machine, too, just in case (well, it was really a probability) his nephews had filled it with frantic messages already. 

“Don’t be too long,” Bill called after him as he went through the door to the kitchen. “This _is_ a rather bedlike couch, isn’t it?”

Theo stopped short, and the door whacked him in the ass. “Yeah, I’ll be right there.” If Bill meant what Theo thought he meant, then this was going to be one of the best days he’d had in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lexington Village doesn't actually exist, but there are a number of similar reenactment communities in the United States. They're usually set around the time of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or the settlement periods of the Old West, and can be a great tourist attraction.


	8. Solomon Had a Vineyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a party at Theo's house and everyone is invited, including a certain cynic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations for the non-English words used in this chapter are at the end.

It was hot and muggy enough outside that Omer was wearing shorts. This was not, in Gad Rabin’s opinion, a good thing. 

This wasn’t a size issue. It wasn’t, after all, as if he was so thin himself. Everyone in the family, including Sima and Galil, were chunky drinks of water. Omer just…well, was _Omer_. Gad took a look at his brother’s legs, which were tufted with white hair and mapped with bulging varicose veins, and took a drink of his iced beer in order to keep from tossing his cookies all over Theo Derensky’s lawn. 

At least, he reflected, the spread was good. Theo kvetched about it every year, but he still invited all the local Jews over to his house to celebrate the Fourth of July anyway, and then he outdid himself with food and drink. A fine Jewish tradition, if a bit noisy and chaotic. Speak of the devil - Gad winced as the blaring shriek of his son’s voice reached his ears. “Galli, not so loud,” he called over to Galil, who stopped in the process of running after Caleb Adler-Derensky and nodded. 

“Okay, _Aba_ ,” he said, and ran off again, shouting “ _Faldi fandonza!_ ” after Caleb’s retreating dark head. Gad shook his head. The boy never listened. He hoped Galil wasn’t going to get bullied for his excessive quoting of _The Princess and the Frog_ , either. The movie had come out when he was five, and he was still obsessed four years later, but fortunately, he was also pretty thick-skinned. 

Omer was still an eyesore in Gad’s peripheral vision. Fortunately, though, he wasn’t the only person at the party by a long shot - Galil’s _mother_ , now, there was someone who looked good in shorts. Gad munched on a piece of fried chicken, the grease of which was in danger of dripping down to his paper plate (it had probably already saturated his beard), and looked around for his wife. Sima was deep in a conversation with Danny Reisberg, as it turned out, and Gad had a perfect side view. 

In deference to the holiday, she was wearing a red velvet tank top, and her heavy breasts were straining at the fabric, so that every so often she reached up and adjusted the straps as they rested on her freckled shoulders. He almost thought he could see her nipples, and that was a thought to make him even hotter than the temperature called for. Although, no, it wouldn’t be appropriate to ogle, not when there was potentially another reason that her chest was bothering her. 

Suffice it to say that there had been a lot of labor involved in getting to this point. Sima had presented him with the positive pregnancy test last week, and _bli ayin hara_ and God willing, it would go to term this time. Galil was a handful, sure, but he wasn’t their only child by choice. Sima had what she colorfully called “fibroids the size of our son’s head,” and although she’d successfully conceived with Galil when she was close to thirty-four, the nine years since his birth had seen at least two miscarriages and some periods that were heavy enough to make them both suspicious. 

Gevalt, a second-time father at _forty-six_. The thought alone made him give his head a rueful shake and bite vigorously into his chicken leg. Sima wasn’t exactly young anymore, either. If they were going to be blessed with another child, there was probably a C-section in their future, and fancy ultrasounds, and a lot of other expensive things that he had to admit he was ignorant about. Well, if he had to learn, the situation would still be a blessing. He’d take the inconveniences with the good. 

“Gad!” The sound of his brother’s voice, pitched high and flat as it always was to account for the hearing loss Omer had been accumulating for years, made Gad look up. His brother was ambling towards him, drink in hand – probably soda, since he thought that alcohol would make his hearing worse. In all fairness, he was probably right. “Control your son, all right?” Omer jerked his chin at the assortment of rowdy children weaving their way in between the clusters of adults. 

“Fine, fine.” Older brothers, such a pain in the _tuchus_. Omer was sixty and he still got on Gad’s nerves. “Galli!” Gad shouted, and caught Galil by the back of his red-and-blue-striped T-shirt as he made a convenient beeline for the space between his father and his uncle. Galil squirmed, but Gad kept his grip tight. “What did I just tell you?”

“We’re outside, _Aba!_ ” Galil protested. Gad inwardly cursed the day his mother had hoped aloud that he would have a child just like him. Mom probably laughed her ass off every time the family visited, because Galil was his spitting image in both looks (so everyone said) and stubbornness. Clearly, she had an in with God or something. 

“I don’t care. You’re disturbing people. _Sheket b’vakasha_ , okay?”

“Fine.” Galil pouted. “ _Y’khol lalekhet, Aba?_ ”

Such disrespect from such a young child. Unfortunately, he couldn’t blame anything but genetics. “Okay, but keep it down. If I get another complaint, you’re going inside. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Right. Get out of here.” Gad released Galil and resisted the compulsion to give him a fond swat on the behind as he hightailed it. You really wouldn’t expect a chunky kid like that to be able to run so fast, but run he did, easily outpacing both of the Adler-Derensky boys. Oreet was reluctantly following, with her dog trailing behind. Poor kid probably wanted to draw, Gad suspected. 

“That boy has no filter,” Omer commented. 

“No,” Gad said. “Probably takes after his uncle.” He snorted quietly to himself, and made an executive decision to go over to the tarp-draped folding tables and get some more food before Omer figured out that that was actually an insult. 

He made his way over the soft, wet grass, reveling in how good it felt against his bare, callused soles, and surveyed the smorgasbord. The kids had picked the fried chicken and rolls pretty clean, but there was plenty of watermelon left, so Gad piled a few slices onto his plate. After a few milliseconds of consideration, he supplemented it with some of the chocolate-frosted butter cake that Bill had made for the party. 

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Gad moaned as a forkful of cake practically melted in his mouth. He hadn’t even made it five feet from the food table, but that was how good Bill’s cooking was. Even so, regardless of the little weirdo’s inexperience with Jewish people, he would have preferred that Bill was there. He grew on you, sort of like those stomach viruses that Galil was constantly bringing home from school. 

It might even have been those same stomach viruses that made Bill unable to be at Theo’s today. Theo wasn’t taking it lying down, though; he’d had Bill on speakerphone for at least half an hour, by Gad’s calculations. The backyard was huge and Theo was kind of far away, but if he strained, he thought he could hear – yep. “…sure you can’t get out of it?” Theo was saying. 

Gad moved just close enough that he could hear Bill’s voice crackling out of the phone. “I told you, Monique took a shift for me last month.”

“So she can’t come in today?” Theo said, frowning down at the screen. 

“No, her ex hasn’t got the twins today. She wants to spend the Fourth with them.”

Theo sighed so hard that feedback crackled out of his phone. “Just so you know, everyone’s gonna finish your cake before you can have any.”

“And how many pieces have you eaten?” Tinny and muted though it was, Bill’s voice still sounded amused. “Five?”

“Three!”

“Fine, I stand corrected. You haven’t got me on speakerphone, have you?”

“Hi, Bill,” Gad said, moving himself into what he hoped was audible range. For no reason that he could figure out, he waved at the phone. “Theo’s broadcasting your personal business.”

There was a pause. “Who is this?” Bill asked. 

“Gad Rabin.”

“Oh, Gad! How are you? How’s the party going?”

“Pretty good,” Gad said. “Your cake’s almost gone.” He steadfastly ignored the laser glare that Theo was shooting somewhere into his forehead. The man didn’t know how to have a good time, even on the Fourth of frigging July. “And Theo ordered a lot of food.”

“That’s good. I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t make it,” Bill said, “but I promised a friend of mine she could have the day off and someone’s got to be here. Lots of family injuries at the holidays, you know. Arguments and all that.”

Gad snorted out a laugh. “Chicken bone shoved up the nostril?”

“Yes, precisely. Ugh, I shouldn’t even be on the phone.”

“Yeah, you should,” Theo cut in. “Ignore him, Bill.” He squeezed the phone in his hand and brought it close to his chest. “I say you should be on the phone.”

“Theo, stop being a possessive bastard,” Bill said, his voice rather muffled against Theo’s chest and the fabric of his disgustingly garish Hawaiian shirt. God only knew where Theo hid (or buried) that fashion sense the rest of the year, because he usually stuck to jeans. At least this shirt was red, white, and blue, but that was about the only good thing Gad could say for it. Penguins on roller blades, _really?_

“Is that Bill?” Sima yelled from partway across the yard. “Gadi, does Theo have Bill on speaker?”

“Yeah, he does.”

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day!” Sima left her conversation with Danny, who looked absolutely miffed at something or other (probably the implication that he wasn’t funny, which, to be fair, he wasn’t), and came to join them. “Bill, have you moved in yet?”

“In the process,” Bill said. “Is this Gad’s wife? Er…Sima?”

“That’s right,” Sima said as she draped an arm over Gad’s shoulders. There was red stubble in her armpit, and as usual, he fought the urge to put his face in it. How was it that every part of his wife could do things to him? He had to settle for kissing her shoulder, which made her squeak, say “ _Gad!_ ,” and plant a fast one on his cheek. 

“Bill, I know you can’t see it,” Theo said dryly, “but Gad and Sima are being mushy as hell over here.”

“And you’re stroking Rug and both of you are glaring at them?” Bill said. 

“No, Rug’s shut in Theo’s bedroom or something,” Gad answered. “Trayf’s here, and he’s huge.” Danny had actually lugged a hard-sided kids’ wading pool all the way from his house and insisted that Theo fill it with cold water so that Trayf could stay cool. Although Gad had to admit that it was a considerate idea, the upshot of it was that Trayf had been dripping water all over the yard the whole day. 

“You know how much of a jerkoff Rug can be,” said Theo. “It’s really for Trayf’s safety.”

“Yes, he can be quite a biter,” Bill said. “Just make sure you’ve given him enough food, or he’ll scratch at the door.”

Gad chuckled. Rug was a huge blob, and it was difficult to imagine him getting up the impetus to do anything, much less extend his paws far enough to scratch. From what Gad had seen of him, Bill was right in that he mostly just sat and glared at people. Galil had tried to pet him once, and had gotten a scratch down the back of his hand for the effort. 

“He has a whole can of wet food in there,” Theo told Bill. “I think he’ll be okay.”

“Good, because – oh, hold on.” There was a pause, during which Gad could hear bizarre beeps and the staticky, staccato fragments of what sounded like a harried conversation. “Damn, my patient’s got a fucking emergency,” Bill said as he came back on the line. “Got to go. I’ll talk to everyone later if you’re still at the house.”

“Good luck, Bill,” Gad said, waving at the phone. Sima rested her chin on his shoulder. 

It seemed like ending the call pulled Theo’s plug; he definitely looked a little demoralized, almost to the point of looking deflated. “Well, he’s the most interesting guy around here,” he said. “Who am I gonna talk to now?”

Sima tsked, but Gad wasn’t bothered, and he knew she wasn’t, either. Theo made a habit of saying stuff like this just to get people’s goats. Grade-A, capital-A asshole, that was Theo Derensky, but loath as he probably was to accept it about himself, parties like this just showed how generous he was, too. 

Really, his generosity was such that he would probably feed the bums off the streets. Family members of the current bums were most likely included. Gad wished his parents would get off their sunburnt heinies and accept his open invitation to Theo’s summer parties already, but Gavriel and Ilana Rabin had been whooping it up in South Florida for the better part of the last decade with a bunch of other eccentric geezers in even uglier Hawaiian shirts than Theo’s. 

“Oh, for…” Theo growled. Gad followed his gaze to find Dwight Feldman and Noah Reisberg stumbling out of the house, leaning on each other. He couldn’t be sure without his glasses on, but it looked like Dwight’s shirt was inside out and what Galil would call his “front door” was hanging halfway open. “What’s with those fucking attention hogs?”

“No idea,” Gad said, watching Noah wipe his mouth. It was true that Dwight and/or Noah had a tendency to break up conversations, including but not limited to the recent ass incident and the time Oreet brought a bunch of what she thought were “Noah’s glow-in-the-dark balloons” to Hillel to play with during dinner. 

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” said Sima. 

“What do you mean?” Gad asked. “He’s not the one who’s gone around putting Dwight’s _beitzim_ in his mouth.”

Sima shrugged. “Point taken, but look.” She pointed at the nearest corner of the yard, where Theo kept a massive trampoline that Galil had bounced on for at least twenty minutes when they first got here. The trampoline had been empty for a while, but it was now occupied with two extremely giggly Adler-Derenskys – parents, not children. Vince’s face was the kind of fire-engine red that suggested at least three beers in recent consumption. 

“Well, sure,” Gad said, “but at least they’re fully clothed.” It looked like the two of them were whispering salacious things to each other, what with the way they laughed. As he watched, both of their sons (with the Inappropriate Shit Going On Here radar that all children seemed to have built in) dive-bombed the trampoline hard enough to nearly knock Vince over the edge. 

Sima pursed her lips, an amused look on her face. “Nice family,” she said. 

“Attention hogs,” Gad said, but he agreed with her. They _were_ a nice family, sometimes better than his own to the outsider’s eye. Really, if attention hogging was Theo’s criterion for exclusion, a massive Rabin descent on the Derensky property wasn’t going to happen any time in the near future. Just living in New England had made Dad, kibbutz-born and raised, a grouchy pain in the neck. On the flip side, Gad did wonder how Mom handled the heat in Florida without driving Dad up the wall. Whenever the whole family went back to see Sima’s parents, second-generation Israelis that they were, she complained for days. 

It went without saying that family gatherings – in which Mom and her American-via-Israel-via-Central Europe history had absolutely nothing in common with the Hitler-free lives of _Saba_ and _Savta_ Aaronovich – were a little awkward. He wasn’t looking forward to Galil’s bar mitzvah one bit.

“ _Cannonball!_ ” Caleb screamed as he pole-vaulted over his outstretched arms into the center of the trampoline. 

_Especially_ not if those two were invited. 

“Hey!” Theo shouted, hands on hips. “Dee, that thing wasn’t cheap.”

“What,” his sister yelled back, just as red-faced as her husband, “the trampoline or Vince’s junk?” She and Vince glanced at each other and, as Gad watched, burst into uncontrollable giggles, squeezing their sons between them. 

“How much has she had to drink again?” Sima said. 

“I can answer that,” Boaz Budin called from a neighboring conversation cluster. “Wait, I…hmm.” He held up a fist and put his fingers up one by one, frowning in concentration. “Nope, can’t remember.”

“Hilarious, Boaz,” Theo said in a tone that suggested he didn’t find it hilarious at all. “She had two beers or something. Dee’s a lightweight.”

“Dad, what’s a lightweight?” Damn. Galil. Why did kids always have to appear whenever it was least convenient? 

“Where’d you come from, Galli?” Gad asked. It was the best stall he could think of on the fly. “You get tired of _miskhakim_ already?”

“A little.” Galil yawned. He’d obviously been picking at the food when Gad wasn’t looking, since his T-shirt had ridden up to expose his round belly. When he was younger, Gad had been able to pick him up and blow raspberries in his navel, and Galil had squealed with laughter every time. He wasn’t to the teenage avoidance stage yet, but Gad still missed those days. “Phil and Caleb stopped playing _v’Oreet lo rotzah_.”

“I think they’re probably going to come back,” Gad observed. Dinah and Vince had moved on from giggling to some very enthusiastic kissing, and both of the boys looked so disgusted that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see one of them projectile vomit just to make a point. It was the kind of thing they’d do. 

“Quit with the PDA!” Theo, of course. Not even getting some on the regular, it seemed, could make the man loosen up. 

Dinah looked up from her latest kiss, curly black hair disheveled and dark eyes still half-shut. Vince’s stubble had left beard burn on both cheeks, her upper lip, and most of her chin. “Oh, go fart in a phone booth,” she said, then burst into shrieking laughter all over again. Vince, for his part, just looked goofily up at her with an expression like she’d just taken the bright July sun out of the muggy blue sky and hung the moon there instead.

Gad shook his head. Behavior like that from the parents of preteen boys? It was times like these that he remembered just how young Dinah was, a full twelve years younger than him. If he recalled, she’d had Phil only a year or so out of college, so maybe that had robbed her of her last chance to act like a child. 

Then, Theo himself wasn’t any better. Although Gad didn’t speak much Yiddish, he understood enough to tell that what Theo was saying to his sister right now was unfit for any company that even pretended to be polite. He just prayed Galil hadn’t been listening the last time Mom yakked to some friend over the phone in her rudest Yiddish about the results of Dad’s latest prostate exam. 

“Jesus, Theo, lighten up,” Dinah said. It would have been obvious at a thousand paces that she was rolling her eyes to the heavens. “No one’s here but us Jews, anyway. Where’s that asshole neighbor of yours?”

Theo looked out across the fence, as if only now remembering that his neighbors existed. “Oh, yeah, Mortensen. I think he barricades himself inside on the Fourth.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Gad couldn’t resist commenting. He loved these parties, he loved his family, and he loved Galil, but he had to admit that the whole thing was a little ear-splitting. Galil’s tiredness was a bit of a blessing right now, because Gad didn’t hold out much hope that his son would remember to shush up and he didn’t want to have to be a Punishment Dad on his day off. 

“Dad,” Galil said, almost like he was reading Gad’s thoughts, “I’m bored.”

Gad sighed and looked around the yard, inadvertently catching Boaz Budin’s eye. Boaz tipped the brim of his baseball cap, white with a pattern of red and blue stars on it, and waved at him. “Go play with Trayf, then. I’m going to go mingle.”

“I’ll come, too,” Theo said. He clapped Galil’s back. “Galil, you want to go find Phil and Caleb? I bet they’d want to throw a ball for Trayf.”

Galil narrowed his eyes at Theo. The expression made him look uncannily like his mother. “Why?”

“What,” Theo said, wide-eyed, “you’ve never been over to the Reisbergs’ house before?”

“No.” Galil’s expression softened just a little and his thick red brows unknit, melting a little into curiosity. Gad had to hand it to Theo; he was a fantastic fun uncle, even with kids who weren’t his nephews. Not a whole lot could make Galil loosen up when he was getting into a mood. “Oreet’s older than me.”

“Then you missed out. Trayf’s hilarious when he’s running around.”

“How’s he hilarious?” Galil said. 

Theo pursed his lips. “Hm. You ever see a dog hang its head out a car window?”

“Just in the movies.”

“Trayf’s like that,” Theo said, “except even funnier. His tongue hangs out of his mouth and he makes a really weird face, and he starts barking. And today he’s all wet, so he might scatter water all over everything and make your uncle mad.”

“No _way!_ ” Galil’s brown eyes lit up and his round cheeks went even rounder with a smile. “Does he drool?”

Theo nodded. “Like a fire hydrant.” He pointed at Trayf, currently lounging half-in and half-out of his pool and panting. “Even weirder face than that one, too.”

“Cool!” Galil grabbed Gad’s hand. “Dad, can I go throw a ball for Trayf?”

“Sure, if Dr. Derensky can find you a ball,” Gad said. He was _not_ bestirring himself to go home in this heat. 

“Ask Dwight,” Theo said with a jerk of his thumb towards the food table. Gad looked where he was pointing, only to see Dwight raiding the tray of watermelon. His beard was already full of seeds and dripping with pink pulp. “He knows how to get into my garage. I’m sure I got a football in there or something.”

“Thanks,” Galil said, and then he was off like a shot, yelling “ _Dwight!_ ”

“Yeah, thanks,” Gad muttered to Theo as they walked over to Boaz. 

“No problem. He was getting that ‘bored’ look,” Theo said, his voice just as low. “Figured you needed help.”

“All the help I can get,” Gad said. If he could get Theo to baby-sit after Sima had the baby, that would be – well, no, he couldn’t go counting his chickens before the eggs were even born. He glanced up at the sky and fervently, silently prayed that the Evil Eye couldn’t hear thoughts. Mom’s Ashkenazi teachings had stuck more than he would have liked them to. 

“Glad to see ye,” Boaz said when Gad and Theo reached him. Benny was there, too, nursing a chicken wing on a paper plate, but Bram was nowhere to be seen. “How’s things?”

“Good,” Gad said. “Where’s your cousin?”

“Inside,” Benny answered as Boaz opened his mouth, “playing with the cat.”

“Right.” Boaz reached over and mussed the hair around his brother’s bald spot, making Benny squawk. “Thanks for that, Ben. I could’ve said it myself.”

“Oh!” Benny put his plate down on the grass, so carefully that it made Gad grin, then put his hands on his hips. “What’d I do t’be saddled with a brother like this? Really!”

Boaz put his arm around Benny’s shoulders and gave him a clearly affectionate squeeze. “Just got the bad luck o’ the draw, Benny. Oi, Gad!” Gad blinked at the sudden change in subject, and addressee. “Where’s Sima?” 

“Still over there.” Gad pointed to where Sima had been joined by Noah and Danny. “She’s talking to the Reisbergs, I think.” He had a hunch that Danny, ever on the watch for useful people as well as friends, was asking Sima about her career. His wife was a jeweler (“not a jewelry designer,” she’d explained to a million curious people, “a jeweler, with one of those loupes and everything!”), and that tended to attract a lot of questions. As long as Danny didn’t try to get himself free stones, he supposed it was fine. 

“That’s good. I love both of ye, but if I had to choose, Sima’s my favorite.” Boaz winked. “I imagine you’d not get beard burn from shaking her hand.”

“Think again,” Gad said, rolling his eyes. “And you don’t get beard burn from shaking _my_ hand, either.”

“No,” Benny said, “that’d be me.” He slapped his forearms, drawing Gad’s attention to how hairy they were, and how freckled, too. Both of the younger Budins, he smugly noted, burned like a tire fire as opposed to his own family of redheads, whose olive skin went ruddy and then tanned. Although Dad was the Mizrahi one, the kind of Jewish person that even the naysayers would admit had Middle Eastern blood, he had – before aging set in – hair as red as Gad’s. Omer took after Mom, with thick, coarse black hair…well, used to. 

“Better put on some more sunscreen, Benny,” Gad advised him. “You don’t want skin cancer.”

“Oh, burning, am I?” Benny examined his arms more closely. “Oh, _that’ll_ be a fierce burn. Thanks for the warning.” Reaching into his fanny pack, he pulled out a tube and offered it to Boaz. “You first. Your face has gone all pink.”

“Not _my_ fault Grandma was a convert,” Boaz complained, but he took the sunscreen anyway and smeared some across his forehead, cheeks, and nose. “Done. Now do yours,” he said, holding out the tube on his open palm. 

“Ta.” Benny took the sunscreen and began vigorously applying it to his arms. “So,” he said, “how’s Galil these days?”

“Growing every day,” Gad said. “He’ll look just like me in a few years. At least that’s what Sima says.” Personally, he thought Galil was more of a mix; his red hair was much darker and more auburn than Gad’s own. Then, you couldn’t really look for your own features objectively. 

“Beard and all,” Boaz put in, and twiddled the ends of his mustache between his thumbs and forefingers. It was drooping a little in the heat, and he looked a lot like a sad dachshund. 

“Yeah,” Theo said, “I was gonna ask you about that. Are you putting him in _peyot_ , or does he just have sideburns already?” Although Galil was no longer nearby, he squinted off into the distance, as if performing a critical analysis of his face. 

Gad shrugged. “Family trait,” he said. 

“Hormone problems?” Benny asked. “We’ve got a bit of that.”

“No, just really hairy,” Gad answered. “We’re super-Jewish. You should see me with my shirt off.” Sima called the entity on his chest either ‘the welcome mat’ or ‘the red carpet’, and had on more than one occasion threatened to shave ‘NO SOLICITORS’ into it with an electric razor while he slept. 

“Ew,” said Theo. “No thanks.”

Who the hell was he to cast aspersions? “Says the man with the Black Forest of body hair.”

“Yeah, I like it on _me_.” Theo stroked the chest hair visible above the top of his shirt buttons in a very Hugh Hefner-like way. “Not attracted to it on other guys, and besides, you’re married.”

“And we’re all very fond of Sima,” Boaz said. 

“What?” Gad grinned. “Are you saying you’d take a whack at me if I were single? Didn’t know you were interested in men, Boaz.”

“Nah, only takin’ the piss.” Boaz yawned, then stretched his arms over his head and cracked his joints with one _pop_ after the other. “Sorry, been up since the arse-crack of dawn. My arms are killing.”

From the smell of things, he’d forgotten deodorant, too, but Gad decided commenting on it would probably be a bad idea. “Did you open the store today?”

“Nah, ‘s’a national holiday,” Boaz said. “Just brought Theo over some cases for the party.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ where the beer came from,” Gad said. “Good stuff, Boaz.” He probably should have guessed. From the story he’d heard, Boaz had been pretty damn poor when he bought his liquor store from the previous owner, but he still only sprung for the best-quality drinks and it showed in how many customers he had. Bo’z Booze, the store with the cheesiest name Gad had ever seen or heard, was one of the more profitable places in town. 

“Thanks very much.” Boaz’s smile turned a little self-satisfied. “I can lift the cases with one hand if I’ve got to. M’arms don’t like it, though.”

“No,” said Gad, and patted his own biceps in sympathy, “I can imagine.” His was the kind of body that tended to build blocky muscle without concerted weight-lifting. Running after Galil was a full-time job, anyway, one that didn’t lend itself to spare time that could be channeled into body-building. Lexington was a walking town, too, so that helped his heart rate. 

“How many have _you_ had, Boaz?” Theo said. “Because if we run out, I can’t legally let you drive to the store and get more. You know, if you’re too drunk.”

“It’s just illegal for me to drive,” Boaz disagreed, shaking his head. “It’s not illegal for you to _let_ me drive.”

“That can’t possibly be right,” Gad said. “Doesn’t it make you an accessory or something? They’ll get on you about civic duties.”

Theo’s brow was so deeply furrowed that his eyebrows practically disappeared into his eyelashes. “I think Danny knows better than any of us.”

“Then you’d better not let me drive drunk, eh?” Boaz tapped Theo’s bottle of beer. “And don’t drink all of that if y’don’t want to run out.”

Theo directed his frown at the bottle and took a gulp. “Good call,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I better make sure the beer doesn’t run out.”

There were a specific set of circumstances, Gad thought, under which this kind of bizarrely circular conversation could take place. Parties were great for that. You were just tipsy enough to have a philosophical conversation about the sauce, but sober enough that your mind tried (and failed) to make a complete logic circuit. He shoved a piece of watermelon into his mouth to disguise his quiet laugh at the fact that Theo was _also_ just drunk enough to admit that someone knew more about a subject than he did. 

“Now,” Boaz said, a proprietary index finger stuck up in the air, “I’ll have the store open _tomorrow_. You can have free beer if y’ stand there in the doorway and scare away the sons of bitches who started coming ‘round.”

“What’d they do, demand too many free samples?” Theo asked. 

“Nah, it’s worse.” Boaz grimaced. “Skinheads. Anti-Semites. And they know damn well who they’re dealing with, because I’ve got _Boaz Budin, Proprietor_ up on the wall, bold as you please.”

Theo bristled, and Gad could feel himself doing so as well. His hands clenched into fists at his side – no one messed with a Jew in his presence and got away with it. “Did they try anything with you?” Theo said. 

“No, but I imagine they would’ve if I hadn’t had Galion working that day, and he’s a witness an’ all even if he’s drunk,” Boaz replied. “Both of them blonder than hell. Brothers, I think. And one of ‘em had tattoos of…” He stopped short. “Tattoos of stuff I don’t want to talk about,” he said in a quieter voice, “even with you.”

Theo patted Boaz’s shoulder. “Understood,” he said. “You think they’re local?”

“Doubt it. I saw their car. Had a ‘Live Free or Die’ sticker.” Boaz pursed his lips. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s New Hampshire, not Massachusetts.”

“New Hampshire?” Theo repeated. “And you said they’re brothers?”

“Can’t be sure,” Boaz said with a noncommittal shrug. “I only got one of their credit cards. But yeah, I think so.”

“The car they drive wouldn’t happen to be red, would it?” 

“Think so.”

“Then I think I know who they are,” Theo said. He turned and raised one hand high over his head, aiming his middle finger at the house next door as if in demonstration. “They’re Mortensen’s great-nephews.”

“Your neighbor has great-nephews?” Gad said. Theo talked enough vague shit about the guy next door that he supposed he’d sort of assumed that he was a hermit who did nothing but occasionally venture out from under a bridge to make people pay tolls. Gad had never even seen the man. 

“Yeah, from his Swedish side or his German side or his whatever-the-fuck side,” Theo said. His narrowed eyes were still firmly fixed on his neighbor’s house. “They’ve come out here a couple summers in a row. I think they got scholarships to UNH, live with their grandmother or something.”

“Are they tall?” Boaz asked. “Bit bulky? I’m betting one of ‘em lifts.”

“Yup,” Theo said, nodding, “those are the guys. I saw them mowing Mortensen’s lawn once. I said hi, and they just glared at me and grunted like…like brain-damaged _Homo erectus_. Erectuses. Whatever.” He ran the fingers of one hand through his beard. 

“If they’ve discovered the booze around here, that’s not good,” Gad said. “Boaz, what’s your profit margin this year?” Ugh, even on his day off, an accountant’s job was never done. 

Boaz scratched the back of his head under his cap. “Fiscal year’s not done yet, but I think it’s higher than last year.”

“Good. Use it. Get Galion in there every day, no matter if he’s drunk. Hire another part-timer if you have to,” Gad told him. Dwight could probably tell them where to hire some bodyguards…they could all chip in a little…Boaz shouldn’t have to deal with this alone. “Don’t set foot in that store unless you have backup.”

“You know, I bet Noah’d do it for a discount,” Theo mused. “You wouldn’t have to worry about him stealing the stash, either. Danny would take his head off.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Boaz said. “Noah’s tiny.”

“Better than him sitting around all day, giving Dwight blow jobs in other people’s spare bedrooms,” Theo said. Gad somehow doubted that either Dwight or Noah was ever going to hear the end of that. “And Noah’s sneaky. I think he keeps a shiv in his hair.”

“It’s two shivs, and I blew him in the master bedroom,” said Noah, whom Gad had noticed steadily creeping (in the literal and metaphorical sense) behind Theo for about the past ten seconds. 

“What the _nipplefuck!_ ” Theo spun around so fast that his whirling hair hit Noah in the face. 

Noah gasped, cringed, and vigorously rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “Ow! Ow, fuck, Theo!” His eyes were red and watery by the time he finished scrubbing them and took his fingers away, and his eyeliner was so smudged that he looked like a raccoon, attitude of casual thievery and all. “That hurt, you douche.”

“I’d just like to point out that that’s your fault for sneaking up behind him,” Gad said. 

“Up yours,” Noah said with a huff through his nose and a crooked half-smirk. “I surprised him, not you.”

“Were you there long enough to hear this lot talking about offering you a job?” Boaz asked. “Because I think it’s a good idea, if you’d be reliable about it.”

Noah chewed on his lower lip. “Would I get free samples during work hours?”

“Oh, sure, within reason,” Boaz said. His unruly mustache hid part of his smile, but the lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes made Gad think that he’d be a little more lenient with Noah taking liberties with his stockroom than most would. 

“Wait a second,” Theo broke in, “what the hell? Did you just tell me you blew Dwight in my room?” 

Noah nodded. “Sure did.”

Theo clenched his teeth and growled deep in his throat. “That settles it. You’re never getting invited back here again, you _or_ Dwight.” He paused and seemed to consider for a moment. “Not unless you bring pizza. And get on your knees and apologize – I mean – goddammit!” he interrupted himself as Noah started laughing. “I mean apologize like your life depends on it! Get that look off your face, Noah. You too, Boaz.”

Noah chortled. “No way, Theo. That’s going down in history.”

“Got to agree with him,” Boaz said. He wiped a tear away from his eye, but whether it was real or an affectation, Gad couldn’t begin to guess. You couldn’t really tell with Boaz, figurative class clown that he was. 

“Hey, Theo?” It was Dwight, holding up a half-deflated football that looked like it had seen both better days and worse. “Is this okay to give to the kids? I went through your garage and it’s the only ball you have.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” said Theo. 

“You didn’t take Galil with you, did you?” Gad asked. “He gets croupy when he’s around too much dust.” He needed to have Galil tested for asthma one of these days. It was getting to be a problem when he did his weekend chores. 

Dwight shook his head. “Just me. The kids are out in the front yard.” Faintly, Gad heard the sound of Trayf barking, which probably meant that all the kids were having fun winding him up. He’d rarely met a better-natured dog. 

“I’d go give ‘em the ball, in that case,” Theo said. “They’ll start getting antsy if you let them stand around too long.”

“Got it,” Dwight said, and left. 

“Should I go supervise?” Gad asked Theo. “Galil’s usually the ringleader if someone decides they want to pull pranks.”

“Yes,” said Theo dryly, “I remember. He was the one who rubber-banded my sink sprayer so it’d get me when I turned on the faucet.” He turned his head in the direction of the empty trampoline. “No, yeah, I think Vince is out there. You can stay here if you want.”

“Good.” Running after his own kid was bad enough. Phil and Caleb? He’d probably lose it and end up roaring at some squirt within about five minutes, and then he’d get an earful from the parents of whomever he’d made cry. Or brother, if it was Oreet, and Danny was worse than just about any other parent he’d met. 

“So what have I got to do to keep safe?” Boaz said, breaking the several seconds of stereotypically contemplative man-silence that followed. 

“Right,” said Theo. “Hire Noah. You got the money for a security system?”

“We’ve already got a security system, you eejit,” Boaz said. “That’s precious cargo I’m selling.”

“Oh.” Theo seemed momentarily stumped. “Okay, then upgrade it. Gad, would you be willing to do some consultation on the store? During the work day, I mean. This is kind of – I feel like we’re going to miss something.”

“Sure. Free for friends.” Gad slapped Boaz five. “I can come down there sometime this week. Just give me a call and tell me when’s good.”

“Will do, soon’s I’ve got my social calendar on me.” Boaz took a drink of beer. 

“Mr. Rabin?” There was a tap on his arm. Gad blinked, surprised, down at Oreet Reisberg. “Mr. Rabin,” she repeated, “I’m sorry I interrupted, but Galil threw the ball into the street.”

Of course he did. Galil was going to get a stern talking-to later if Gad had anything to say about it. “Tell him to sit tight,” he answered. “I’ll go over and get it back for you in a few minutes. Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re welcome.” Oreet smiled. She was such a sweet kid, Gad thought, and it was a nice smile; she should show it more often. If he had an overbearing brother and one with a criminal record, though, he might not want to smile himself. 

“Reety?” Noah beckoned her over with a mischievous look in his eyes that Gad recognized far too well. He was right, too. When Oreet took a few steps in her brother’s direction, he grabbed her and gave her a noogie. “Gotcha, squirt!”

“ _Noah!_ ” Oreet cried out between giggles. “Noah! I – I said don’t – Noah, knock it off!”

“Okay, have it your way.” Noah released her and brought his hands up. “Resistance is futile, Reety.”

Oreet frowned at him. “It’s _Ori_ , Noah. I hate stupid Reety.”

“Ori, then.” Noah kissed the top of her head. “Go give ‘em hell.” She nodded at him, rare smile back on her freckled face, and ran out of sight. “Danny _needs_ to stop cutting her fuckin’ hair,” he added once she’d gone. 

“I think the chili-bowl look was a failure the first time Mom tried it on me,” Theo said with an emphatic nod. “It doesn’t work with Jewish hair.”

“I just hope Danny doesn’t get to her too much, or she’ll end up like –“ Noah began. It was all he had the chance to say before a scream from the front yard drowned out what he was going to say next. 

Gad’s heart abruptly stopped beating. That was Galil’s voice, and it was terrified. _I’m sorry I interrupted, but Galil threw the ball into the street._. Before he knew it, he was already halfway around the side of the house, stumbling over the fat tufts of unmown grass, panting, his armpits and palms running with cold sweat. 

The scene in the front yard was the picture of chaos. Gad’s eyes darted from side to side: Phil, Caleb, Oreet, Trayf all accounted for – and there was his son. “Galil!” he shouted. Galil stopped mid-scream from where he was inexplicably kneeling on the sidewalk and half-ran, half-tripped his way to him. 

“ _Aba_ ,” he said, and Gad knelt and swept him up into the tightest hug he could give him. 

“ _Ma osah?_ ” he demanded, slipping fully into the Hebrew of his childhood. Galil shivered in his arms. “ _M’daber oti, Galil, akhshav!_ ”

“ _Aba_ ,” Galil repeated. 

“What did you do?” Gad said, pulling himself back to English with difficulty. “Did you run into the street? Don’t you _ever!_ ” He squeezed Galil even tighter. 

“ _Aba_ ,” Galil sobbed. Gad stopped short and pulled back to look him in the face. “I didn’t, _Aba_ , I didn’t m-mean to, V-Vince…Vince…” He hiccupped and buried his face in Gad’s beard. 

“Shhh, Galli. It’s okay.” Gad rubbed his back, but Galil was inconsolable. His hands grabbed for Gad’s beard, just as they had done when he was only hours old and Sima called Gad _Aba_ for the first time. 

Galil got out the word “Vince” again between wails. What on Earth, Gad wondered, did he keep saying his name for? Had Vince said something to scare him? No way was he going to stand for that. 

“My God.” The voice was Sima’s. Gad looked away from the top of Galil’s head to see his wife with her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide, staring over Gad without moving a muscle. 

“Galil’s okay,” he said, but it didn’t change the look on her face. “What’s going on –“ And then the pieces slammed together so fast that his stomach dropped down to the wet grass beneath him. Slowly, reluctantly, he followed her gaze. “Vince, oh _God_.”

But it was a stupid thing to say, he realized immediately. Vince wasn’t going to be able to hear him, or answer. He lay sprawled over the curb half a block away, streaked with blood, and he wasn’t moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also on Tumblr at godihatethisfreakingcat.tumblr.com . 
> 
> All I can say, guys, is I'm sorry. 
> 
> Glossary  
>  _kvetch_ : complain (Yiddish)  
>  _Faldi faldonza:_ the made-up expression of surprise from the movie _The Princess and the Frog_  
>  _Bli ayin hara_ : without the evil eye - colloq. "may the evil eye not hurt me" (Hebrew)  
>  _Tuchus_ : bottom (Yiddish)  
>  _Sheket b'vakasha_ : quiet, please (Hebrew)  
>  _Aba_ : Dad (Hebrew)  
>  _Y'khol lalekhet_ : can I go? (Hebrew)  
>  _Saba_ and _Savta_ : Grandpa and Grandma (Hebrew)  
>  _miskhakim_ : games (Hebrew)  
>  _v'Oreet lo rotzah_ : and Oreet doesn't want to (Hebrew)  
>  _beitzim_ : eggs, colloq. "balls" (Hebrew)  
>  _Peyot_ : sidecurls, worn by some Orthodox Jewish male children (Yiddish pronunciation is _peyes_ )  
>  _Ma osah?_ : what did [you] do? (Hebrew)  
>  _M'daber oti, akhshav_ : talk to me, now (Hebrew)


	9. O Daughters of Jerusalem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is something to be said for being cool in a crisis, but that can only be taken so far.

She could hear everything and see almost nothing, even with her neck turned as far as it could go to look into the back of the ambulance. Vince was lying back there behind the partition, and the beeps of some kind of monitor in the back of the ambulance combined with the occasional quiet whimper had twisted Dinah’s stomach into a fancy knot. 

Sima had been the one to call 911, of course, and Benny started CPR as soon as he arrived in the front yard. It should have been Dee. She’d been too busy standing there with her mouth open to call a fucking ambulance for her own husband or to even try to protect his body from falling to pieces. Phil and Caleb had screamed, begged, and tugged at her arms, and for all their effort, it had been like they were tugging tree branches; she was still as stone. She couldn’t move or speak, or do anything but stare at Vince face-down in the road. 

“Hold still, sir,” she heard one of the paramedics in the back of the ambulance say. “I’m gonna put in an IV now, okay?” His voice was soft, obviously meant to soothe. Dinah choked on a laugh. What did it matter if he soothed or if he swore, if Vince couldn’t hear him or answer with one of his usual quips? A sound that she couldn’t describe came out of her throat as she twisted her neck farther to press her face against the grille dividing the front of the ambulance from the back. 

It had only been the idea of being separated from him that was strong enough to thaw her. “Is there a family member?” the paramedic now driving the ambulance had called out as her partner bundled Vince onto a stretcher and securely strapped him in. A third held Vince down while he got strapped. _Looks like something Theo would use in bed_ , she remembered thinking, and after that, _Vince needs to hear me say that._ Laughter would heal him.

“Me,” she’d blurted. “I’m his wife. I’m Dinah.” Clumsily, she clambered up past the paramedic into the back of the ambulance. “Put me in with him.”

“Ma’am, you’ll need to ride in the passenger seat.” The paramedic reached in and pulled her out with as little effort as Theo used to lift a hammer. “If you’re going to come with us, you can’t be in the back with him. It’s the law.”

“ _No_ ,” she said aloud now, snapping herself out of the memories that surrounded her. 

“No what?” the driver asked. 

“No…nothing.” Vince was so quiet. Why wasn’t he talking? No one could outshine Vince when it came to cheering people up. “Talk to him,” she said. “Please. It’ll make him…” Her voice faltered. “…talk back.” 

“Maybe he would prefer it if you talked to him,” Vince’s paramedic suggested. 

“But I’m not there with him.” Didn’t he know anything? That slow, over-inflected voice, like you’d use to talk to a child, showed that he didn’t understand. “I need to be – to be with him.” Dee’s voice tripped halfway through the sentence. It was her fault that she was up here instead of back with Vince. She hadn’t fought hard enough. 

“Get in the front, Dee,” Theo had said. “I’ll bring the boys to the ER. They’ll take you to Veterans’.” And she’d just obeyed. Phil and Caleb needed to be here to make Vince smile himself well again, just like he’d done to Dee when they met, and she hadn’t even protested. Just told her sons to be good for their uncle and watched as they clung to Theo like a couple of pint-sized bear traps. 

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” said the paramedic. “Just stay where you are. We’ll be at the hospital soon.”

Vince moaned. It was a soft sound that was barely audible in the space between puffs of oxygen from the mask they’d put on him, but she would know his voice anywhere. “Vince?” Hope swelled up in her chest, warm, making her heart pound. “ _Vince!_ ” Dinah twisted around as hard as she could in her seat and only succeeded in pressing the side of her face against the partition. “Vince, wake up!”

“I’m so sorry, but he’s not awake,” said the paramedic. “Not fully.”

“False alarm,” she said, then slumped forward into her seat. It was as if someone had turned off her brain for all the ability she had to control her own muscles now. Whatever insane puppet master had decided that Vince needed to get hit by a fucking car had cut her strings and his in one stroke. 

The ambulance bumped over a pothole, shaking Dee in her seat. She winced, but it was nothing compared to the scream Vince let out behind her. The sound, God, she’d never heard him express that much pain. Her head hit her thighs and she found her hands clamped over her ears, although she couldn’t remember putting them there. 

It was hardly even effective. All three paramedics swore colorfully, the driver in at least two languages, and then she heard the telltale record-scratch discordance of a zipper being torn open, followed by various beeps and the occasional bang. “He’s desaturating,” a male voice from the back called out. Then, more frantically, “Fuck! Tension pneumothorax.”

“Well, put in a chest tube!” his partner snapped. She wore a ponytail, Dee remembered suddenly, and it made her look no-nonsense. 

“I’m trying!” There was another sound, almost a howl, from Vince, and then a loud, rhythmic, repeating sucking noise too mechanical to be human gasps. “It’s in.”

He was so still. Through the pressing weight of her palms, still too light to truly provide comfort, Dee could hear that he wasn’t banging around like he usually was when something hurt him. “It’s not right,” she mumbled into her thighs, surprising herself with how unsteady her voice was. Vince was never still. Sitting, he tapped things on his bony knees, drummed his fingers, and scratched various parts. Standing, he ran. Asleep, when normal human beings were at least still if not quiet, he sprawled messily into her personal space and usually ended up with his snoring mouth next to her ear. 

Her breath came in pants and she began to rock forward and back in her seat, unable to stop. Vince _had_ to wake up and realize how ridiculous this shit was. Hit by a car, when he made fun of his twitchiness and speed by saying he was the ‘fastest jogger in the West’ – impossible. His endless liveliness was what attracted her in the first place, her just nineteen years old with both her father and a brother dead and her mother sinking fast. Mama was the only one of her parents who lived long enough to see any of her kids fall in love, and even she was dead six months after Vince came into her life. 

Theo, Vince, and the boys were all she had left. God couldn’t be cruel enough to take her soul mate, the man that even her skeptical brother said was _beshert_ with her. It couldn’t happen. No, no – 

“Please calm down,” said the driver. 

“ – no, no, no…!” Dinah snapped her mouth shut. The words had escaped her through the thick leaden torpor that weighed down her entire body. Vince would say she was cracking up, talking without realizing it. _Dang, Dee, sleep much?_. Her throat abruptly tightened. 

“Will he die?” The question came out high and quivery. With a start, she realized that she sounded exactly like Caleb when thunder was booming outside. “Please, will you tell me?” _Suck it up!_ her own voice screamed inside her head. She was thirty-four years old and a motherfucking mother. She’d made it through Phil’s meningitis scare; she had to get through this without dissolving into a pile of blubber. 

“We’re doing everything we can.” The paramedic’s tone was so patronizing that Dinah suspected he probably would have given her a condescending pat on the head if she weren’t curled up. She’d watched enough fucking Grey’s Anatomy with Benny Budin to know what happened next: someone flatlined and the medical professional in charge leaped around, gasping instructions until the state of flatlining became permanent. Then that same soft, daycare-aide-esque voice was used to deliver the bad news via the worst clichés in the world. 

A shiver went through her, raising goosebumps on her arms and legs. “You better,” she whispered against the fabric of her shorts. “Fuckin’ better.”

The ambulance made a sharp turn and came to a halt. “We’re here,” said the driver. “Do you need help getting out, Mrs. Adler?”

“Adler-Derensky. It’s _Ms_.” Something had to be correct in this messed-up situation. “And I got it.” Dinah unbuckled, unfolded herself from her stony little ball of uselessness, and opened the ambulance door with a shaking hand. Her head spun from the rapid change in position and she dropped down onto the asphalt – nearly falling, really. Whether it was the broiling heat or her own state of mind, everything looked drawn in wavery lines. “Vince? Where are you?”

The paramedics’ shouts alerted her. They were bringing Vince, still on his stretcher, down from the back of the ambulance as quickly and efficiently as they’d bundled him into it. As she watched, they brought him down the last couple of feet and began walking him across the remainder of the parking lot at a pace she could only call ‘frantic,’ or maybe ‘power walk.’ No wonder. He was an absolute mess. 

The knot in Dee’s stomach did a flip, and she ran towards the paramedics as quickly as she could. Her flip-flops slapped against the pavement. “Wait!” she shouted. “Vince!” The paramedics didn’t stop, but it was a short distance and she had her hands clamped around the plastic piece nearest his head within a few seconds. “Oh my _God_.” They hadn’t been lying – his blood-stained T-shirt, which pre-injury had borne a handpainted “MONKEY’S UNCLE” graphic on it courtesy of Benny, was torn aside and there was a goddamn tube sticking up out of his chest. She felt the brief, insane urge to knock aside the little bellows-like thing that was attached to the tube and blow into it, just to see if it would make him twitch. 

“Ma’am!” One of the paramedics from the back of the ambulance pulled her away. “We have to get him triaged. I’m sorry, but you can’t be in the way.”

“ _Bullfuck_ I can’t,” she snapped, and jogged a few steps forward to catch up with the moving stretcher again. That was one of Theo’s swears and it was usually effective as a result of how disconcerting it was. This time, though, all she got was a set of dirty looks in triplicate. “He’s my husband!”

No one answered her this time, probably because they moved through an open set of double doors and once again, the atmosphere abruptly flipped. Suddenly, there were people pushing her roughly out of the way and yelling things to each other so quickly that she could barely pick up a word. “Vince?” she said, her voice so small compared to the mushroom cloud of babble that was blowing up around her, and then she saw a familiar face. “ _Bill!_ ”

“Dear God,” Bill Baggins said, his eyes locked with hers and his hands frozen halfway to the medical staff-inflicted stab wound in Vince’s chest. How had she forgotten that he was going to be here? 

“Bill, Vince got hit by a car,” Dinah said. The simplicity of the statement seemed so incredibly absurd that she almost wanted to laugh. 

“Shite, yeah, I see that,” Bill said. His tone was just as weirdly conversational as that of the words she’d heard coming out of her own mouth, like they were having a conversation about Vince scraping his knee while he went to get a Band-Aid. Someone shoved him from the side while pressing closer to the stretcher, and he flinched. “How on Earth did that happen?”

“Bill, you know this woman?” asked the shover, a tall, blonde woman who looked way too skinny to do her job, whatever that might be. Her wavy hair was half-up in a bun, and a piece of it fell down to bracket the side of her face. 

“Remember what I told you about Theo?” Bill said. 

“Yeah.”

Bill pointed to Dinah. “His sister.”

The blonde woman nodded. “Okay, then, you’re off the case.”

Bill looked affronted. “Come on, Gil –“

“No,” the woman interrupted as she took a packet of what looked like sterile tools and handed it off to some doctor in a white coat. Bill was shaking his head. “No, Bill, this is non-negotiable. I’m pulling the boss card,” she said, glaring at him. He began to protest again, and she snapped at him. “Bill! Shut up! You want a write-up for unprofessional behavior? Believe me, I’m saving your ass. You’ll fall apart if you stay on this guy’s case.”

“I can be perfectly professional!” Bill said. 

“Yeah, _usually_. Not with – oh, fuck…” Gil whirled around, suddenly entangled in the morass of people milling around and (from what Dinah could see) working on Vince. “Bill, take her to the waiting room,” she ordered over her shoulder. 

“You’re not going to let me stay with him?” Dinah burst out, the stupor that had surrounded her the whole ambulance ride dissolving. An ambulance was one thing, but they were _not_ shuffling her off to some other wing. “Okay, no, that’s not happening.”

“Ma’am, your husband has suffered some serious internal trauma,” said Gil. Her face was hard, at least in the few moments when she looked away from Vince long enough to look at Dinah. “He needs to be examined right now!” she shouted over the voice of a doctor. If Vince’s condition was a storm, then they were definitely in the eye; it felt weird to be so detached. The lethargy was threatening to return again, and Dee pinched herself in the stomach to try to combat it. Immediately, she felt her forehead start beading up with sweat. 

“I’m not going,” she said. Her voice came out a lot more quavery than she intended. 

“Dinah, it’s the law,” Bill said, and took her arm with his brows apologetically furrowed. “You can’t be in the operating room while –“

“He needs _surgery?_ ”

“Yes, of course. Come on.” He pulled on her arm. She stumbled backward, unwillingly following him; the puppet feeling was back, but this time, it was Bill pulling the strings. “I’ll take you to the waiting room,” he added, leading her towards another set of gray-painted double doors. “Come on, there’s a coffee machine and I’ll…” _Fuck this shit_. She wasn’t going to bother to hear the rest of that inane sentence. Dinah wrenched away from his arm as hard as she could and ran. “ _Dinah!_ ”

“No!” she shouted, nearly a scream. Vince wasn’t in the same place; where did they take him? Frantically, she darted her eyes around until they lit on the stretcher being rolled into a room off the main emergency room, trailed by that retinue of people. She didn’t know them and Vince didn’t know them, so they couldn’t possibly help him, could they? “Vince…” This time, his name came out broken. 

“I need Mark over here,” Bill called behind her. He had to bring in reinforcements. Good. Vince was going to laugh his ass off when he heard about this. Dinah jogged towards the closing door of the small room, behind which she could already hear a flurry of voices again. There were shadows moving behind the frosted glass pane set into the door, but she couldn’t see what the hell they were doing back there. 

“Let me in!” she shouted, banging on the glass pane with both fists. She probably couldn’t break it, but she could make this really flipping inconvenient for everyone who was keeping her from the man she loved less than only her sons. If she gave up now, she’d be letting Phil and Caleb down most of all. “Open this door or I’ll put my fist through it!”

Before she could attempt and fail to make good on that threat, a strong arm had her around the stomach and its owner was lifting her off the ground. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but if you can’t let the doctors work, you’re going to have to leave,” her captor said. 

“Thanks, Mark,” said Bill, the traitor, from his new position on her right. Dinah would have growled at him like a dog if she were able to do it without sounding ridiculous. As it were, she settled for baring her teeth at him and kicking Mark in the shins while he dragged her to the double doors, away from Vince and away from any source of information she could have found. 

She debated screaming as well as kicking and then decided, as the doors opened and she was carried into a waiting room that looked way too pedestrian for its macabre purpose, that embarrassing herself more was probably a bad idea. “Thanks,” she muttered instead as Mark, who turned out to be tall, black, dreadlocked, and _extremely_ gorgeous, set her down in one of the uncomfortable chairs near the entrance. 

“Now look,” said Bill as he put his hand on her shoulder, “Gilly’s usually more reasonable than that. I’m going to try to get back on Vince’s case for you, all right?”

“Yeah.” Dinah rested her chin in her hands and her elbows on her thighs. It would probably have been rude to say _What’s the use?_ , so she kept her mouth shut for lack of anything nicer to tell Bill. 

“Don’t you lose hope on me.” Bill knelt in front of her and looked into her eyes, an intense expression etched deeply into the furrow of his brow and the set of his jaw. “I’ll do the best I can for you.”

Dinah nodded. “Go, Bill. Go back to work.” She felt so drained. Curling up and going to sleep like a baby sounded like a very good idea just then, even though the chair’s plastic arms made a piss-poor substitute for a parent’s loving arms. 

“I’ll leave you alone,” Bill said softly, and walked back through the doors to the emergency room, which swung behind him like the veil from _Harry Potter_. Dee could only pray that there wasn’t a similar divide between life and death in the emergency room versus the waiting room. Somehow, though, she doubted that God was listening. If your fucked-up need for a jolly made you send a car where no car should be, you probably had no desire to listen to your victim’s wife complaining. 

She folded her arms over her thighs and rested her head on them, shivering. Whether that was from some kind of shock or from Mark having set her down under the air-conditioning vent, she didn’t know. The hairs on her forearms stood up either way and wouldn’t go down, rub them as she might with her still-sweaty forehead. Briefly, she wondered how it was possible to be sweaty and goosebumped at the same time. Shock? Yeah, it had to be shock. Bill would know – but Bill wasn’t here anymore, either. 

This was giving her a cramp. Dinah drew her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her calves, then rested her head on her lifted thighs. That was better, like she was really curled up somewhere far away from here. Although she was still shivering, now she could press her torso up against her legs and try to get rid of some of the goosebumps. That and close her eyes. The lights in the waiting room were way too bright. 

“Dee? You asleep?” Theo’s voice. What was Theo doing here? The last she’d seen, he was still at his house with Phil and Caleb. 

“Not anymore,” Dinah said. The words came out slurred through a cottony mouth and half-numb lips. She rearranged herself into a seating position and gritted her teeth, then shaded her eyes and squinted up at Theo. “Fuck. Cramp. When’d you get here?” 

“About thirty seconds ago. I brought the boys,” Theo said. Well, that much was obvious. Caleb had both arms around Theo’s waist – God only knew how her brother had walked, with that kind of load – and tear tracks down his cheeks, while Phil clung, stony-faced, to one of his hands. 

Dinah rubbed her dry, itchy eyes with her palms. “Just the boys?” She knew their Hillel friends. If none of them had shown up, she’d eat her hat. Nonetheless, her sons had to be her primary concern right now. “Philly, Caley, you should sit down. We’ll be here for a while.”

Phil slowly, and with obvious reluctance, let go of Theo’s hand and took the seat next to Dinah. Caleb continued to cling, to the point that Theo had to physically lift him into his lap to sit down himself. “Mom,” Caleb said, sounding millimeters from a crying fit, “is Dad dead?”

“Don’t talk like that, buddy,” Theo cut in before Dinah could answer. She shot him a grateful look; older brothers were the best antidote to the worst questions kids could spit out. “I’m sure your dad’s getting taken care of. Right, Dee?”

“ _Thanks a lot_ ,” she hissed under her breath while Caleb wiped his face, then took her younger son’s sticky hands in her own. “Caleb, your uncle is right. Dad is right back there.” The image of the veil unexpectedly popped back up in her head as she pointed to the doors to the emergency room. “He has to have some operations.” It had to be some cruel irony, she thought, that she’d read that particular volume of the series to Phil and Caleb just a month ago. The stuff of bedtime stories might become the stuff of nightmares, and the brothers Grimm would likely be pretty proud. 

“He’s not gonna die, right?” Caleb asked. Oh, God, those huge brown eyes were going to just kill her. Dinah felt her lip wobble and, thinking fast, faked a hiccup to hide it. 

“They’re doing everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said. Her heart cracked a little at the look on Caleb’s sweet little face, but she couldn’t lie to him. Probably a consequence of her childhood, when Theo had tried (and failed, through no fault of his own) to protect her as well as he could from the hells their parents had gone through. 

“But I don’t _want_ Dad to die!” Caleb cried. A few people around them looked up, including the Rabins, minus Omer, a few rows of chairs away. All right, so _that_ was where they’d parked themselves. Poor Galil looked to have fallen asleep on his father’s lap, and Sima was petting his messy red hair. 

“Caley, shhhh,” Dinah said. Come to think of it, holding her own kid might not be a bad way to get him to shut up until they had a definitive answer. “Come here and sit in my lap.” She held out her arms, and Caleb immediately clambered over Theo’s legs – provoking an “Oof!” from the uncle in question – and onto Dinah’s, hiding his wet face in her neck. 

“Mommy,” he said, “don’t let him die. Please?” 

“Sweetie, believe me, I’m trying.” Dinah began to pet his sweat-matted curls. She was pretty sure that he had the right idea; a good fucking cry would probably do her some good right about now. Not for the first time, she wondered why his emotional demonstrativeness couldn’t have been the trait that came from her instead of Phil’s sullen, cross-armed – yep, a fast look confirmed that his response to this situation was to sit there and look as disagreeable as possible. Like son, like mother. And like uncle. 

Theo said that there was nothing wrong with her for being so stoic, but Theo’s emotional constipation was legendary: he held everything in until the blockage became life-threatening and then it all came out in a rush, to be gross about it. Dee had been twelve when Papa died and his funeral was kind of a blur, but she remembered Mama’s funeral all too well. Theo stood next to her coffin, blank-faced, and gave a speech about how amazing she was that hit all the right notes, but just didn’t sound right with his flat affect. Then he went home and sat in front of the computer for about a day and a half, at which point he broke down in tears on the carpet. 

“Mommy, ‘m’gonna go to sleep,” Caleb mumbled against her shoulder. 

“Quit being a baby, Caleb,” Phil said from her other side. 

Dinah reached over and flicked the back of his cowlicked blond head. “Phil, shut up. Your brother has a right to deal with this his own way.” The little hypocrite was only eleven months older than Caleb, so it wasn’t like _his_ coping mechanisms were that much more mature. 

Phil’s frown deepened. “But Mom, I’m bored!” He wiggled his butt in the chair and slouched. “And Caleb’s really annoying.”

Dinah could feel the tightening of her jaw in her temples. Dear sweet deep-fried Jesus on a cracker, she really hoped she didn’t come across like that. “Ask your uncle if you can play with his phone. I’m helping Caleb right now.”

Phil stuck out his lower lip. “Can I go talk to Mr. Budin?”

“Which Mr. Budin?” Dee asked. 

“Benny.”

“Sure,” she said. “Where’s he sitting?” Phil pointed. The Budin brothers, minus their cousin, were on the other side of the waiting room; no wonder she’d missed them. In fact, most of the party guests were there, too. Noah Reisberg was sitting in Dwight Feldman’s lap (when did _that_ relationship go public?), Omer Rabin was pacing in the small space between one cheap-ass blond wood end table and another, and Boaz looked to be deeply engrossed in conversation with Benny. 

“So can I go?” Phil repeated, obviously impatient. 

“Where are Danny and Bram?” she said in lieu of an answer. Phil could wait a minute. “I don’t see them.”

“Danny’s watching Oreet with Mr. Brian ‘cause he says Oreet can’t handle hospitals,” Phil said as he rolled his eyes. “Mr. Bram’s getting coffee.”

“Thanks. You can go,” Dee told him. Phil stood up, took a second to yank down his shorts where they’d ridden up his skinny, tanned legs, and made a beeline to the Budin corner. Dee turned her attention back to Caleb – she didn’t have to worry about Phil, if he was with Benny. Maybe that made her a bad mother, but at this point, she didn’t fucking care. 

Caleb seemed to have made good on his intent to fall asleep. Dinah rubbed his back, running her finger down the bumps of his spine, and looked at Gad’s family. She couldn’t really blame them for sitting far away from everyone else, with how much they’d all internalized the Jewish talent of guilt-tripping both other people and oneself. Gad looked so small and shaken right now, so she was probably right. Even his beard looked like it had shrunk in on itself, and the usually faint circles under his eyes were as purple as a bruise. 

Sima’s head was leaning against Gad’s shoulder, and he intermittently reached over and petted her belly with one hand. Dinah felt a sudden stab of envy. If she were wearing velvet like Sima, she’d probably pet herself just for the soothing effect. Vince never minded her belly, either; like Theo, Mama, and Papa – but not Forrest, the stick – she’d never been thin, and had fluctuated between sizes twelve and fourteen ever since Phil and Caleb were born in such quick succession. In bed, Vince’s favorite thing to do when he was feeling silly was to shove his nose into her navel and blow raspberries on her stretch marks, something she wouldn’t have been surprised to find out Gad did to Sima on the regular. 

She found that she was slowly shaking her head again, like she was denying God or whatever other cosmic deity had thrown a bowling ball into the relative neatness of their lives his due. Vince was hers, with all his idiosyncrasies, both good and bad. There was no way he wasn’t fighting tooth and nail back there and giving them hell, because he’d drawn out that same spark of life in her and made her fight back at life, too. 

Then the doors opened, and Bill stepped out. “Dinah?” he said. Dee snapped to attention and she stared at him as hard as he could while he went to stand in front of her. What clues was he hiding? “Oh – good. You’re still here.”

He’d dicked around enough with her. She wasn’t going to stand for any more. “Where’s Vince?” she asked. Her voice came out like iron, hard and brittle. 

Bill gulped once, then again. His mouth opened and a hiccup came out. “We did everything,” he said, the beginning of a sentence that something in the back of Dinah’s mind had been expecting to hear from the start of this shit. “They sent me,” he continued, and stopped short. And she knew. 

“He’s dead,” she said. Instinctively, her eyes went to her lapful, but he hadn’t stirred. Thank fuck for small mercies. “Vince is dead.”

“Yes,” Bill said simply, and started to cry. 

Theo immediately got up, put an arm around him, and led him (with more gentleness than she had seen out of him in a while) to the seat next to him. Dinah’s head was curiously empty of anything other than the ability to watch. Maybe the returning knot that she felt in her stomach had switched places with her brain – a knot that squeezed and cramped the flesh around it like a hot rock or a bomb.

“I’m gonna throw up,” she blurted out, and disentangled Caleb from her shoulders and hair with stiff, numb fingers, setting him down in her chair. Her face felt hot and fever-sweaty and her stomach churned harder and harder with every second. Wouldn’t that be great, to make a scene coming into the emergency room _and_ coming out of the waiting room? 

“Bathroom’s over there,” Theo said, indicating a labeled set of doors next to the front desk with his thumb. His arm was around Bill, whose face was buried in his hands as he shook uncontrollably. Another small mercy: he was a quiet crier. Dinah would have thanked him for that if not for the fact that the contents of her stomach were slowly but surely making their way up the back of her throat. 

She nodded quickly, trying to convey her eternal gratitude as thoroughly as she could in one gesture, and sprinted to the women’s room. The stall door banged open as she rushed in, dropped to her knees, and made a gut-wrenching offering to the porcelain god. 

For the first time in her life, she truly understood the meaning of the term “projectile vomit.” Her stomach was aching – hell, not just her stomach, but her esophagus all the way up to the back of her mouth felt like it was slowly being eaten away. Her breath heaved uncontrollably in and out of her lungs, echoing loudly in the stall. They could, she thought ruefully, record her breathing right now and sub it in for Darth Vader. 

Dinah closed her eyes and let herself slide bonelessly down the lemon cleanser-scented floor. Holding herself up was too much to ask right now. Her cheek came to rest on the edge of the toilet brim, hot and sticky with sweat both old and fresh, and her hair hung down in front of her face to the tiles. The movie cliché that you could fall asleep in front of the toilet was right after all. Vince would be amused to hear – no, he wouldn’t. Never would again. Her stomach churned, and she wrenched herself up with palms flat against the side of the toilet just in time to throw up into it again. 

Her vision was throbbing around the edges by the time she was finished. She’d never passed out (that she could recall) and she was no medical professional, but in her opinion, this was a pretty obvious sign that moving right now would be a bad idea. The air in her lungs rushed out of her in a sigh reminiscent of the sick sound of a balloon deflating, and she put her head down again on the coolest part of the toilet seat that she could reach. 

“Dinah, you in here?” 

“Boaz,” she mumbled. Her lips moved against the toilet seat and her voice came out pinched and nasal. No wonder, if her nose was smashed so hard against the surface. “’S’the women’s room in here.”

“I don’t think they’ll throw me out for carin’, Dinah.” The stall door squeaked open behind her and she felt Boaz’s warmth as he knelt behind her. “God, your hair’s in the toilet.”

“I’m washable.”

“So? That can’t be comfortable.” Gentle hands scooped her hanging hair from where it curtained her face and gathered it behind her. “Any better?”

“Little,” she said. “Are Phil and Caleb okay?”

“Yeah, Benny’s taken them off to the cafeteria for dinner.” Boaz stroked a hand slowly down her back, following the line of her spine just the same way she’d done to comfort Caleb in his sleep. “They think you got the stomach flu. We figured you’d want to tell ‘em later. You know, when you’re not in pieces.”

“You’re a miracle worker.” Dinah lifted her head up and drew her legs in, molding herself into a slightly less sprawled position so she could look Boaz in the eye. He still had his hand reached out, but in the absence of a back to stroke, it looked like he was reaching towards her in a plea for supplication. 

“It’s no problem,” he said, drawing his arm back and shrugging. His eyebrows knit together. “Dinah, you really do look sick. Sure you’re finished?”

“I’m running on empty,” Dinah said as she touched her stomach. “Don’t worry.”

“Good. Right.” Boaz got to his feet. “I’ll go get you a wet towel.”

“There’s no towels in here.”

“Paper towel, Mad Literalist,” Boaz said, his voice echoing from the sink. She heard the water come on. “Don’t worry about bein’ in here, by the way,” he said in a louder tone, probably to be heard over the water. “Dwight and Noah are outside the door. You know, guardin’ your right to have a vom in peace.”

Dinah had to laugh at that, even though it hurt her gut. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining Dwight and Noah in those ridiculous hats that the guards at Buckingham Palace wore, glaring at everyone who tried to get into the bathroom. “You know,” she said, “I probably _should_ get out of here. You know, just so other women don’t have to pee on the floor.”

“That can wait.” Boaz came back into the stall, squatted down in front of her, and started dabbing her face with the wet paper towel in his hand. “Those ones out there haven’t got to deal with a dead husband,” he continued, sounding far too conversational for the subject matter. 

Dinah gagged, and tensed, turning to the toilet just in case she had missed her guess – but no, there was nothing in her throat except the taste of acid that remained there like a coat of paint. “No, they probably don’t,” she said hoarsely. 

“No more false alarms?” Boaz held the towel aloft. Dinah shook her head. “All right. Hold still, I’ve got you.” He wiped the towel across her forehead, then her cheeks and chin. In contrast to the cool, wet paper, his hand was warm, and the intensity written in his pursed lips and knit brow was uncharacteristically grim. His eyes, which were usually crinkled with laugh lines, weren’t laughing anymore. 

“Is Theo doing okay?” she asked. 

Boaz nodded. “He went with the lads,” he said, wiping the back of her neck. Immediately, coolness suffused Dinah’s entire body, and she let out a sigh of relief. “There, now. That’s better, isn’t it?”

“Tons.” 

“Good.” Boaz crumpled the towel and stashed it in the sanitary-product bin attached to the side of the stall. “D’you think you might be ready to come out, Dinah? It’s all right if you need more time.”

“Nah, I’ve probably hogged the bathroom long enough.” Dinah held out her hand. “Help me up? I’m kind of wedged down here.”

“Gladly.” Boaz smiled and took her hand, the tendons in his forearm standing out as he pulled her to her feet. “Now,” he said with a touch to her upper arm, “there are people waiting for y’ in the waiting room. All right to deal with that?”

“I guess,” she said. Her legs wobbled, and as she smoothed her hands down her thighs, she noticed that the goosebumps were still there. “Is ‘ready as I’ll ever be’ appropriate for this?”

Boaz stuck the tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. “Probably not,” he said after a moment of introspection, “but you’ve got the right to be inappropriate. No one gives out a crib sheet for shite like this.”

Dinah looked askance at him. “You don’t have experience with family death, do you?” For all she knew, Boaz’s kindly demeanor could be a smoke screen for the purpose of hiding a bunch of skeletons in a sad, dark closet. “You’ve never said anything, but, I mean…we never asked.”

“No, m’parents are still alive,” Boaz said with a shake of his head. “Grandmam’s dead, though. I was fifteen when she went. So, yeah, I guess I’ve got a little experience in this area.”

“Oh.” The clammily awkward reality of this situation was starting to impress itself upon her. She was standing in a bathroom stall that still smelled like vomit – and at that thought, she quickly stuck her hand out and flushed the toilet – discussing personal bereavement. “We should probably go,” she said, wiping her mouth. 

“Right!” Boaz turned sideways and wormed himself out of the stall, which was admittedly pretty crowded with two people in it. Dinah followed him into the main bathroom and then out the door, which was flanked on either side by Dwight and Noah, just as Boaz had promised her. Instead of standing still, though, they were in the middle of what looked like a drinking game, minus the alcohol, when she and Boaz came through the door. 

Dwight stopped still in the middle of miming bringing an imaginary glass to his mouth. “You okay, Dee?” he said, catching her by the arm. 

A flicker of annoyance sparked to life and began a steady burn in the middle of Dee’s brain. “Stop asking me that,” she said. “I’m fine, okay, Dwight?”

Dwight held his hands up, but Noah was shaking his head. “You are _not_ fine,” he said. “God, no. Dinah –“ and here, he lowered his voice to a confusingly almost-inaudible level – “my parents murder-suicided. I said I was fine, but I was _fucked-up_ , and I hated those jackoffs.” 

That explained the whisper. “Jeez,” Dinah said, for lack of anything else to say. She massaged her forehead with her fingertips; the fluorescent lights in here were _definitely_ starting a headache. “What are you two doing, anyway?” 

“Drinking every time Theo snarls,” Dwight answered with a low chuckle. Dinah looked out across the rows of chairs until her eyes landed on Theo. He still had Bill in his arms, but now his face was his typical sour pout, probably because Bill’s boss was now sitting where Dinah had been. “It’d be better if we had some actual beer.”

“He’s snarling, all right,” Dinah said, although she thought that Theo’s snarling was much too common an occurrence to merit a drinking game. Dwight and Noah must have been bored out of their minds when she was in there; the realization made her stomach cramp with guilt. 

“You probably better get over there,” Noah suggested, and wiped the back of one black-streaked hand across his face. His eyeliner smudged, adding to the streaks. “I think they’re waiting for you.” He looked at Dwight, exchanging a lightning-quick yet somehow coded glance that twelve years of marriage had taught Dinah to use, too. Those looks could transmit information faster and more densely than a fiber-optic cable, and she had to wonder _when_ , exactly, Dwight and Noah had found the time to grow that close. 

Well, she thought with a slight shrug – fuck, her shoulders were sore and she didn’t know why – this wasn’t the right time to navel-gaze about the reasons that Noah Reisberg found himself in an actual relationship. “See you guys later,” she said, and wove her way through the huddled clumps of waiting families and rows of chairs until she reached ground zero. 

“You all right now, Dee?” Theo asked, petting Bill’s ear. “Get it all out of your system?”

“Yup.” Dinah turned to Bill’s boss, whose face was even skinnier up close, and held out her hand. “Um. Hi. Dinah Adler-Derensky.”

“Galina Logunova,” said Gilly, with a slight smile and a motion towards her nametag. She stood up and shook Dinah’s hand. “Do you have some time available, Mrs. Adler-Derensky? There are things that need to be arranged.”

“ _Ms._ ,” Dinah corrected automatically, then her brain caught up with her mouth. “Arrangements?”

Gilly’s smile turned rueful. “Under ideal circumstances…” and here, Dinah could have sworn she saw Gilly flick a razor-sharp gaze in Bill’s direction, “you would have been apprised of your husband’s condition in a more private setting. Mr. Baggins was informed of the necessity.”

“Wait a fuckin’ minute,” Theo interrupted. His upper lip curled and one eye twitched, ever so slightly. “Bill’s _family_. He shouldn’t’a been sent out here in the first place!”

“Doctor Derensky, I understand you’re upset –“

“Upset? Try _pissed_.” Theo laid emphasis on the last word like a lead-footed driver laying rubber, the _s_ coming out in a deep, truncated hiss. “You _know_ Bill’s history with this family.” He disentangled himself from Bill and stood up. Gilly was a tall woman, but he towered over her by at least six inches. Dinah couldn’t help a twinge of satisfaction as the schoolyard scream rang in her head: _my brother can beat you up._ “You should’ve sent some other nurse. Any other nurse, or some intern. Not Bill. This is your fault, not his.”

Gilly blinked a few times. “I…” She reeled in her open mouth. “That isn’t the topic of discussion at this point. _Ms._ Adler-Derensky,” she said, inclining her head when she used Dee’s form of address, “if at all possible, I need to take you to a private room to discuss your husband.”

“Not without my brother,” Dinah said. 

“You’re next of kin for your husband,” Gilly said. “Unfortunately, your brother presents a bit of a legal quandary.”

“I’ll give whatever permission I have to.” Dinah folded her arms and curled her toes down, digging them into the rubbery foam of her shoes. “Either I get the official news with Theo, or I don’t get it at all.” She was well aware that this was immature, and in fact, she was forcefully reminding herself of Caleb on several occasions. It didn’t matter, though. Theo was one of the few people who had proven himself capable of holding her up in life and she wasn’t about to let him sit in the waiting room now. 

Gilly paused, seemingly about to say something, and then belayed her intention with a short nod. “All right. Ms. Adler-Derensky, Dr. Derensky, please come with me.”

“Benny will keep Phil and Caleb away for a while, won’t he?” Dinah asked, turning to Theo. 

“Oh, yeah. They’ll be down there for hours.”

“Okay.” Dinah spared a look at Bill, still sitting in the chair where Theo had left him. His face was flushed bright pink and his cheeks were streaked with tears that looked fresher than those she’d seen. “Bill, are you gonna be okay?”

Bill wiped his face with a shaking forearm. “I should be,” he said. “I just – I need a bit.”

“You need more than a bit,” Gilly said. “Take the rest of the day off, Bill. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” She turned back to Dinah, an apologetic look in her eyes. “I’m sorry to rush, but time _is_ a bit of a factor here.”

Dinah took as deep of a breath as she could, which wasn’t very deep. Her lungs felt like they’d been squeezed into a soda bottle and left to try to expand against the plastic walls. Then Theo took her hand, and in an instant, she was five years old again, with her big brother taking her to preschool and fortifying her with just his silent presence. “Let’s go,” she said. 

Quickly, her shoes clacking on the tile floor in a way that Dinah had never heard come from rubber-soled sneakers, Gilly brought them down a short hallway off the waiting room and into a room just large enough for the three of them. “Please sit,” she said, indicating the chairs there, and took the remaining seat herself. 

Theo only let go of Dinah’s hand long enough to sit down, but he took it again as soon as he was in the chair, which was way too small for him. His shoulders were wider than the backrest, and with how close the chairs were to each other, his left shoulder bumped into her right one every time he shifted in place. “Let’s get this over with,” he said heavily. 

Gilly cleared her throat. “All right.” She leaned forward in her chair, towards Dinah. “Ms. Adler-Derensky, I’m very sorry. We did all we could, but –“

“- my husband is dead,” Dinah interrupted her. Her mother would never approve of her being so rude in such a situation, but her lips felt somehow uncoupled from the rest of her head, stiff and numb like the nerves had been sliced. “Vince is dead. He died. Bill told me. You don’t have to tell me again.”

“I…yes. Yes, you’re correct.” Gilly coughed politely into the back of one hand, as if _that_ was going to salvage this sorry situation. “Ms. Adler-Derensky. Your husband was brought into surgery as quickly as possible, but we found he had suffered some very severe thoracic and abdominal trauma, and he suffered cardiac arrest about fifteen minutes in. The surgeons did their best to restart his heart, but they weren’t successful.” She lowered her chin. “I’m very, very sorry for your loss.”

Ice coagulated in the pit of Dinah’s stomach. “What killed him?”

Gilly looked down at her clipboard. “The official cause of death was an aortic dissection. The, ah, the largest vessel carrying blood from his heart was unable to withstand the stress of the injuries to his body cavity.”

The ice in her belly spun tendrils past her lungs and up her throat until it met her numb, frozen lips. “He fell apart,” she said. There was a roaring noise in her ears, as loud as a blizzard. “Vince’s heart stopped beating.” If only they’d made sure he woke up before they wheeled him in. If Vince were awake, he never would have let it happen. He was never the kind of person to fall to pieces, literally or otherwise. 

Gilly reached across the few feet between them and touched Dinah’s knee. “I’m so sorry,” she said again. Dinah flinched away; this woman wasn’t her head-shrinker, and if she thought that unwanted physical contact and some canned phrases for grieving family members were going to change anyone’s outlook, then she was short-sighted regarding more than just what to do with her staff. 

“So what happens next?” Theo said. “Dee, is Vince an organ donor?”

Gilly answered before Dinah had time to dig through the recesses of her memory to the last time Vince had gotten his driver’s license renewed. “Unfortunately, Mr. Adler-Derensky’s organs were deprived of oxygen for too long to be viable,” she said. “He’s no longer eligible to donate, I’m afraid.”

 _Unfortunately. I’m afraid._ What the fuck was it with hospitals and using soft words to beat around the bush? Vince was dead. His organs were dead, too. There was no nice way to say that without making yourself sound like a massive dick. “That’s too bad,” Dinah said. Gilly scrunched up her mouth and gave her a weird look. “Vince would’ve wanted to donate,” she elaborated. “I know he would’ve.”

“I’m sure he would have,” said Gilly, more gently. “Now, the next step is to make arrangements for his body. Did he have a will?”

“Yeah. Yes, he – I mean, we both have them.” Everyone had insisted that she and Vince draw up their wills after Caleb was born, and she meant _right_ after he was born. Dinah had wanted to object – who wouldn’t, in her situation? She was just twenty-three years old, already a second-time mom and too worn out from Caleb’s fourteen-hour birth to want to think about anything except feeding him and falling asleep. But Vince had brought in Phil, who was nearly a year old then, and he’d cooed and stuck out his neck to bump his fat little tow head against his new brother’s forehead. 

She’d signed the papers a week later in a notary colleague’s office, with one son in a sling on her back and the other one sitting on her lap. 

“ – funeral home?”

Dinah shook her head hard. “Sorry, what?”

“Do you have arrangements with a specific funeral home?” Gilly repeated. She was clearly starting to get a little peeved off, if the lines between her eyebrows and the flare of her nostrils were any indication. 

“Melkor and Sons,” Dinah said. Despite Lexington’s not-insignificant number of Jews, it was the only Jewish funeral home nearby. “It’s in the will.”

“Good.” Clearing her throat in a very businesslike fashion, Gilly took a few papers off the clipboard and shuffled them. “I just need to have you sign some things so that we can have them bring your husband’s body to the funeral home as soon as possible.” She paused. “Would you like to see him?”

“His…his body?” This couldn’t be happening. Dinah had had nightmares like this, just like everyone else, but they _always_ let her wake up before the person who found Vince’s body started talking logistics. _My husband is dead._ How was it, she idly wondered, that it hadn’t sunk in until now? She knew she’d told it to herself. _I’m never going to see him with his eyes open again._

“Dee?” Theo was patting her arm. “You’re spacing.”

 _I need to get out of here._ “My lawyer has the funeral arrangements,” she said. The words sounded so far away, like her ears were blocked. “It’s in Vince’s will. Call Danny.”

Gilly cocked her head. “Ms. Adler-Derensky, are you all right?”

“I can’t see his body. I can’t do this.” Vince had to understand. He had to know that she couldn’t look at him battered and broken, lying under a sheet in some morgue. “My husband is dead,” Dinah said, “and I need to get drunk. I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign, I just need to get out of here and _I need to get drunk_.”

“Dee.” Theo took one of her hands in both of his, scooting his chair so that they were facing each other instead of Gilly. “You want me to call Danny? Seriously, I can. You don’t have to stick around if it’s going to –“

“ _Yes_ ,” she said. “Yes. Yes. I need help, Theo.” 

For once, his response wasn’t something along the lines of ‘yeah, you need help - _professional_ help.’ Instead, he nodded once, squeezed her hand, and looked from her to Gilly. “Give my sister whatever papers she needs to sign,” he said, his voice deep and authoritative and almost reverberating in the tiny room. “Then let her go. Her lawyer’s authorized to give you this kind of information and I can get him over here fast.”

 _Thank you_ , Dinah mouthed at him. For some reason, she couldn’t get the words out of her swollen throat. Theo smiled back at her and squeezed her hand hard. 

Gilly frowned down at her papers. “As long as he’s authorized to act in her place, I don’t see why not. Can he get over here quickly?”

Theo nodded. “Ten minutes, and that’s no problem. He’s got power of attorney for Dee.” He pulled his phone out of his shorts pocket and began to move his thumbs across the screen. “Texting him now. He always has his phone on him.”

“That’s fine,” said Gilly. “While he’s doing that…” She trailed off as she rested the clipboard on her knees and flipped a paper back, then pulled a pen out of the pocket of her scrub top. “You specified Melkor, right? On Main Street?”

“Yeah,” Dinah said. Ron Melkor was an old crab, wore way too much aftershave, and had looked pretty much the same for at least twenty years, but he knew what he was doing. When Mama died, he’d held the funeral and made sure she was buried quickly and dignifiedly, which – considering she died in the bathroom at home – was a feat she had to admire. If she remembered correctly, his three sons were all in their forties, so maybe he would trust them to take over some of the business now. 

“Okay.” Gilly finished writing on the form and passed the clipboard over to Dinah. “Sign where I put the X, and put the date, please – and then the two under it, where it says ‘signature of next of kin.’”

Theo’s phone buzzed just as Dinah was finishing the last loop of her last signature. Her hand was already cramping up in addition to the weird tremor it had developed; her fingers didn’t seem to want to do what she needed them to. “Danny’ll be here in ten,” he said. 

“Thank fuck,” Dinah muttered, signing a wobbly ‘7/4/13’ on the printed date line. It was so hot in the room all of a sudden, and she didn’t want to find out that she had a hidden reserve of puke just waiting to land on Theo. That shit had gotten old when she was three. “I’m gonna go wait in the waiting room,” she said in what she figured would be a normal tone, and stood up so fast that the clipboard hit the floor. 

Theo leaned over and picked it up. “Get outta here,” he said. “I’ll hold down the fort.”

If he had anything to say after that, she didn’t hear it. She was already out the door as he was finishing that sentence, running down the hallway back to the waiting room. Theo could take care of this a lot better than she could right now. He wasn’t the one whose motions were jerky and robotic even as she ran; that honor was Dee’s. He wasn’t the one who’d run to the bathroom after Bill said the news. And, as she found out when she stepped back into the waiting room, he wasn’t the one with two sons waiting for him. 

Well, it looked like Boaz had been wrong. Hospital food could only placate Phil and Caleb for so long. “Mom!” Phil shouted as he waved from a seat. “Mom, where’s Dad? Benny won’t tell us anything!”

“Phil, quiet,” Dinah said automatically. “People are staring.” She didn’t need to get yelled at for noise pollution on top of everything else, but what a thing to focus on right now. Some tiny part of her brain was insistently prodding at the rest of it, repeating _Vince is dead. Vince is dead. Vince is dead_ over and over, louder and louder, until the rest of her thoughts disappeared beneath it. 

“Boys,” she said, “sit down,” and now people were looking her way. Oh. She must have been loud enough to drown out the voice _and_ everyone else’s conversations. 

“We’re already sitting down,” Caleb said. His forehead crinkled and he started biting his lower lip, his usual expression when he was about to start crying. “Mom, what happened?”

Dinah took one of the seats between them. “Phil, Caleb,” she began, then almost laughed as she realized that her lips were starting to form the words _I’m so sorry_. Maybe she was no better than Gilly, but she doubted her sons would take it any better than she had. Honesty was the best policy here. “Your dad is dead.”

She wasn’t surprised to see Caleb’s eyes filling up again within a heartbeat, but Phil’s eyes doing the same _was_ kind of a surprise. “Then Galil killed Dad,” Phil said, wobbly-voiced. “He’s a dad-murderer.”

“Yeah, a dad-murderer!” Caleb echoed. 

Oh, God. “Boys, Galil did _not_ murder your dad,” Dinah said as forcefully as she could. “Boys – Phil, goddammit, get back here!” She made a grab for the back of his shirt, but it was too late. Phil was already clambering over the seats like a little mountain goat, making for the Rabin family. 

“Galil!” Phil hollered as he reached the cluster of chairs. “Galil, wake up!”

Luckily, he had stopped moving at that point, so Dinah was able to catch up and grab him by the shirt. “Knock it _off_ ,” she growled in his ear. “Phil, you’re gonna be lucky if you don’t get grounded for the rest of your life!”

“But Galil _killed_ Dad!”

“I _did?_ ” Fuck, Phil had succeeded in waking him up. Galil’s eyes were as round as saucers and he began to tremble. “ _Aba_ , I killed Vince?” he said. Gad glared at Dinah. 

“Sweetie, you didn’t kill Vince. It was an accident,” Dinah told him. Fuck, fuck, Galil was going all wibbly and huge, teary eyes were her Kryptonite. “Galil, come here.” She bent over and held out her arms, and thank God, he went into them instead of throwing a full-blown tantrum. “Gad,” she said over his shaking head, “I’m so sorry.”

Gad huffed, crossing his arms. They were sun-browned under their layer of hair, and Dinah had to shake her head as the surprise punch of awareness hit her in the face. “Dinah, you’ve lost Vince. They’re upset. I understand.” Jesus Christ, it was still the Fourth of July. How long ago had that far-away party been, a few hours? And in those few hours, she’d…

She bit her lip against a moan of surprise and pain when her stomach cramped all over again. “Ow,” she whimpered, and released Galil back into his father’s lap. “Oh, Galil, I’m sorry. I just, I…I…” Now the room was shaking; what on Earth was behind that? No, not the room – her head. And her body. 

“You what, Dinah? Are you okay?” Sima touched one of her wobbling knees. 

Then the words came back to her. “I need to get drunk.”

“No, no,” Sima said, shaking her head back and forth so vigorously that her hair nearly whapped Dinah in the face. “Sweetheart, you do not need to get drunk right now.”

“She can come to the shop,” came Boaz’s blessed voice from behind her. Dinah straightened up all the way and turned to look at him. He’d removed his hat; that was new. “Dinah,” he said, “I promised I’d wait ‘til Bill got some coffee and take him to Theo’s, but Benny can take you.”

“God, would he?” Dinah said. She’d have to send that family a fruit basket or something. First Boaz came into the bathroom with her and now he was pressing his little brother into helping her, too? They had to be saints. 

“Sure,” Boaz said with a shrug. “He’s not doin’ anything right now. Benny, can you take Dinah?” 

“Yeah, absolutely!” Benny got up from his seat and came over to them. Bram, sitting next to him, smiled at her and waved; Benny and the boys must have picked him up in the cafeteria when they went for food. “Dinah, d’you mind if Bram’s with us, or are y’after more privacy?”

“Bram’s fine.”

“Oh, good. Boaz, the key?” Benny asked. 

Boaz stuck a hand in his shorts pocket and began to dig around. “It’s in here somewhere,” he said, and came up with a key ring after a few seconds of rummaging. “Got it!” He snapped a key off the ring and tossed it to Benny, who caught it easily. “Just don’t put too many lights on or people’ll think we’re open.”

“Business on a national holiday, how terrible for conservatives everywhere,” Benny quipped, putting the key in one of the pockets of his voluminous cargo shorts. “Just think, ye might have business goin’ on without their say-so.”

“That’s America!” Boaz said. “Dinah, you’ve got my permission to drink anything out o’ the store, as long as y’ eat something while you’re there. I’ve got crisps stocked in the cupboards.” He turned to Sima, who was still on her feet. “Sima, don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her. She’s in the hands of some very experienced drinkers.”

“Fine,” Sima said, “but if she gets alcohol poisoning, I’m holding you personally responsible. And I’m making sure Vince kicks your –“ She stopped short with a sort of hiccup. “ _Shit_.”

“You forgot he was dead,” Dinah said dully, “didn’t you?” Her stomach wasn’t cramping anymore; now it just felt like it was filled with rocks and was threatening to fall past all her internal organs and sag out her pelvic floor. “Honest mistake, Sima.”

“Oh, Dinah, I’m so sorry,” Sima said, but unlike when Gilly said it, the phrase didn’t make her want to rip Sima’s throat out and stomp on her larynx. Maybe it was because she’d heard her telling Gad that he needed a shave “big-time” enough times to know that she wasn’t a phony. “That was inconsiderate of me.”

“No, it was _human_ of you,” Dinah said. She’d once asked Mama when Papa was coming down for dinner three weeks after he’d died, and if Mama hadn’t killed her out of grief then, she could afford to cut Sima a break. “I’m not jumping off a bridge here. I just need to get drunk.”

Sima sighed, came forward, and engulfed Dinah in a hug that was both very warm and weirdly matter-of-fact. Maybe it was the perfunctory pat on the back. “You take care of yourself, Dinah,” she said. “I’m coming over tomorrow to check on you. You want a casserole? Gad and I can make casseroles.”

Ah, there were the mourning rituals she knew and loved. “The boys are picky eaters, but thanks anyway,” Dinah said, returning the pat on the back. Sima’s back was cool and tacky with drying sweat, a sensation that was comfortingly reminiscent of the boys. This could have been one of those tactile groundings; she vaguely remembered Theo talking about having people with PTSD touch stuff when he was taking that abnormal psych class years ago. But she was also pretty sure that PTSD didn’t develop an hour after a death, so this was just confusing. 

“M-Mrs. Dinah?” Galil sniffled. “I’m sorry I killed Vince.”

“Honey, you didn’t…” Dinah sighed and changed track. Telling him he wasn’t a murderer clearly hadn’t worked before. “Don’t worry about it. Vince wouldn’t want you to freak out.”

“’Kay, I won’t freak out.” Galil wiped his face with the back of one hand. His pug nose was running. “I’m still sorry, though.” God, the kid was persistent. “See ya.”

“You, too.” Dinah ruffled his hair. “Benny, are you ready to go?”

“Whenever you are,” Benny said. 

“ _Kibinimat_ ,” Bram put in helpfully. Benny immediately turned scarlet, and Dinah forced a laugh back down her throat (it made a very loud gulping noise going down). Forrest’s one letter home before he turned to field pizza had contained a list of swear words for their general edification, and – being ten – she’d committed every one of them to memory. 

“Bram, keep your voice down!” Benny said, taking his cousin by the arm. “Come on, I’m parked right out by the emergency entrance. Dinah, follow me an’ we’ll be there soon.”

Bram kept on swearing as they walked out to the parking lot, but at least he had the presence of mind to do it under his breath. That was fortunate, because every ten words or so, Dinah would swear she heard something absolutely filthy in English. 

“Back or front, your choice,” Benny said with a sigh after they’d made their way through the muggy evening air to his red hatchback. “Bram, you’re in the back.”

“I’ll keep him company,” Dinah said. Benny nodded and unlocked the car, and she slid into the back after Bram. It smelled of cinnamon inside, and she immediately pinpointed the source as the scarlet, pine tree-shaped air freshener dangling off the rearview mirror. It was faded enough that she could guess it had seen more than a few sunny days. “You like the color red, huh?”

“With my hair, you’ve got to reclaim it,” Benny said, backing up out of the parking space. “Have you ever been to Ireland?”

“No, but I’d like to go.” Dinah jerked at a sudden gentle touch on her head. “Bram, what are…oh.” Bram smiled at her and kept rubbing. “Benny, I think he’s massaging my head or something.”

“Bram, why’re you touchin’ Dinah’s hair?” Benny asked. 

“ _Hi atzuvah_ ,” Bram answered. “ _Rotzeh litkan, shoteh._ ”

“No need to call names,” Benny said as he flicked on the turn signal. “And I am _not_ a fool.” He looked back and forth a few times, then turned into the road and began to drive away from the hospital. 

“Bram,” Dinah said, “if you want to really be useful, you could give me some braids.” Her face still felt sticky despite Benny’s air conditioning going full blast, and besides, she dreaded what might happen to her hair if she felt the sudden need to throw up again. 

“ _Mitzuyan_ ,” said Bram. He gathered her curls into a ponytail and stroked the crown of her head with one hand, then combed through the ponytail a few times with his fingers and began to braid. From the feel of things, he was giving her pigtail braids, which she hadn’t habitually worn since she was a kid. _Memory lane_ , she thought, and laugh-gulped again at the baseless thought that maybe that was the lane Benny was driving on right now. 

“All right, Dinah?” Benny asked. She saw his eyes glance towards her in the rearview mirror. “Not going to be sick again, are ye?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. “Just a weird noise. Your car is safe.” Bram tugged on a braid and said something that was too fast for her to understand. “Sorry, what was that?”

“He’s got nothin’ to tie it back with,” Benny said. “Bram, there’s a box of rubber bands in the seat pocket next t’you.”

“ _Todah_.” Bram let go of Dinah’s hair to pat Benny’s bald spot around the side of the seat. Dinah smiled as he pulled the box of rubber bands out of the back of the driver’s seat and shook it next to his face, a wide-eyed expression that was probably meant to be enticing on his face. 

“You don’t have to convince me,” she said. “Tie away.” 

Bram nodded and twirled one finger, which she took to mean she should turn her face away so he could finish her braids. When she did, he snapped a rubber band onto the end of each braid and brought the ends around so she could see them, waggling the wild hair past the rubber bands with his fingertips. “ _Ka’itz, lo?_ ” he rumbled. 

“ _Ken_ ,” Dinah said as the corners of her mouth twitched up. Bram patted the top of her head a few times, then went back to his smooth, gentle strokes. She closed her eyes and leaned against the car window, feeling the achy throb of her stomach ebb a little. 

“All right,” Benny said, “we’re here.” Dinah snapped open her eyes and shook her head. First the waiting room, now the car. Was she some kind of late-onset narcoleptic? “Follow me.”

Dinah got out of the car, followed by Bram, and stretched her arms over her head. Benny went to the door under the store’s pink- and yellow-striped awning, pulled Boaz’s key out of his pocket, and unlocked the door in one smooth motion. “Door’s open,” he said with a chortle, “and store’s open. Come on in.”

She closed her eyes as she came into the store. Although she’d been there a few times before, mostly to pick up vintages that the nearest Trader Joe’s didn’t carry, she was always soothed anew by the cool woody smell of Bo’z Booze. If she remembered right, the darkly-paneled woods were real paneling and he and Benny had put up the wood themselves. 

Bram flipped the light switch and Benny began to rummage in the cabinets below the bar. All that was visible of him was his fat back, and his shirt was riding up, giving him one hell of a plumber’s crack. “Let me get ye some crackers,” he said, voice muffled. “Boaz won’t have me lettin’ ye drink on an empty stomach. He’ll kick my arse if I do.”

Dinah laid a hand on her stomach. It gurgled in response. In fact, she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear an empty clank coming from inside. “Probably not a bad idea,” she said. “I _did_ have some beer at Theo’s.” Sima was going to hand her her ass if she heard of Dinah waking up hungover when her sons needed her, and to be honest, she’d be right to do it. 

“I’ve got some leftover Tam Tams.” Benny stood up, brandished the box at her, and shook it so that the contents shuffled around. What Boaz was doing with a half-empty box of – Dinah squinted – poppy-seed Passover crackers, she had no idea, but she wasn’t about to complain. 

“Okay,” she said. “What’ll you give me to drink?”

“Some wine. Is that all right with you?” Benny bent down again and resurfaced with a bottle of wine, also partially empty. “D’you like Riesling?”

“Riesling is fine.” 

“All right, then.” Benny took one of the wineglasses off the artistically-arranged stack on the bar and filled it up, thank God, to the top. “Pull up a stool.” He set the glass down, put a dish towel on the bar, and shook out some crackers onto it. “There, now you’re set.”

“Thanks, Benny.” Dinah sat down on the stool and rested her feet on the metal ring above the base. “Just keep it coming.”

“Eat first,” Benny said, crossing his arms. 

“ _Fine_.” Dinah rolled her eyes, but it was mostly for show. Benny was hardly the most annoying person she’d ever had to listen to to get something to drink. She popped a few crackers into her mouth and chased them with some wine, then rinsed and repeated until the expression on Benny’s face softened. “Enough to keep you from worrying?” she asked. 

“Should be.” Benny picked up a glass and began to wipe it with another dish towel. “You know, ‘s’long as I’m here, I might as well clean up a bit. Boaz can’t wipe glass for shite.”

Dinah took a long sip, snorted, and narrowly missed getting a noseful of wine. “How is he at wiping his ass, though?” 

“I don’t want to know,” Benny told her with a raised eyebrow. He sighed and picked up another glass, then began to whistle something she didn’t know under his breath. Maybe this was his comfort, cleaning up in an almost-empty room while the evening grew darker outside the windows. _Understandable_ , she thought, and brought the glass to her lips again. 

Somewhere between one and a half and two glasses later, she resurfaced at the sound of the door opening. “How’re you doing, Dee?” Theo said behind her. “Gotten good and drunk yet?”

“On my way,” she said, putting the glass down and turning around in the stool. “Oh, hey, these things are spinny!”

Theo’s smile was bemused. “You’ve never drunk at the bar here before?”

“Nah, never been in here long enough – Theo, why are my sons in here?” Phil and Caleb were hanging back by the door and whispering to each other, seemingly awed by the contents of the store’s floor-to-ceiling shelves. She didn’t blame them. In the dim light, the full bottles looked like the contents of some ancient tomb, maybe paying tribute to an important god. 

“’Cause they wouldn’t let go of me when I came here to check on you,” Theo said. “Phil, Caley, no touching the merchandise.”

“Can they _legally_ be in here? That’s what I meant,” she said. “I don’t want to get in trouble with the law.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Theo said. “No one’s calling the cops. Oh, hey,” he added, turning, as the door opened again. “Hey, Boaz.”

Boaz tipped his hat. “Don’t you two touch my bottles,” he said to Phil and Caleb with an admonishing shake of one finger. “Dinah, I’ve got to thank your brother. He was my ride to and from the hospital.”

“Thank him with free beer and I think he’ll call it even.” Dinah raised her glass towards Boaz and took another gulp, draining it. “I need more wine, Benny.” 

“She’s had enough, Benny,” Theo said. 

“Come off it, it’s Riesling.” Benny poured her glass half-full. “I’m watching her, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, Theo, _I’m_ the one drinking,” Dinah said, and took a mutinous sip of wine. Theo needed to get off her ass about this. Of course, since it was Theo, maybe it was too much to ask. Getting on, and up, people’s asses seemed to be his calling in life. The thought made her snicker into her glass. 

Boaz sat down on the barstool next to hers and picked up her glass. “Benny, is this my Riesling?” he asked. “My _relaxation_ Riesling?” 

“Sorry, Bo, but she needs it more than you right now,” Benny said. “An’ I’ve got Bram here, so he can protect me if you attack. Don’t even try.” Bram gave a guttural laugh from his position on the store floor, widening Dinah’s smile. At least she had some people on her side. 

Boaz shook his head. “You’re lucky you’re my younger brother or I’d beat your arse,” he said. “But Mam and Bram’d kill me if I hurt you, so I s’pose you’re safe. For now.” He squinted at his brother like John Wayne in an Old West movie trying to be intimidating. 

“Well, then.” Benny took the box of Tam Tams and dumped the rest of the contents out on the bar, loose poppy seeds and all. Boaz moaned. “Who wants to see how many o’ these I can shove in my mouth at once?”

“Yeah!” Phil yelled from the other end of the store. “Eat ‘em, Benny!”

“Go for it, Benny,” Dinah said. 

“If my fans demand it,” Benny said, and shoved a pile of crackers in his mouth instead of finishing the sentence. His cheeks bulged out, giving him the startlingly accurate look of a fat red squirrel. “Mmph?”

“You go, Benny!” Dinah pumped her fist, then raised her glass and downed the rest of its contents in a few gulps. The alcohol burned the back of her throat and she coughed hard, but it stayed down. Good to know she could still chug with the best of them. 

“Boaz,” she heard Theo say as she watched Benny choke down his mouthful of starch, “can I have your seat?”

“Sure.” Boaz hopped off. “You want to hug your sister?”

“Talk to her, more like.” Theo took a seat beside Dinah and put a hand on your back. “Dee, you and the boys are going to stay with me tonight, okay?”

He had some fucking nerve. Was he trying to imply that she was going to go postal on her sons? “I’m thirty-four years old, Theo. I have a perfectly good house. I’m taking the boys to our house.”

“First of all,” Theo said, “you’re drunk, so you’re not going anywhere.” He sighed and squeezed her shoulder in the palm of one hand. “Second…Dinah, this isn’t a request. Your husband just died, okay? You gotta stay with me tonight.”

“Mom?” Phil was on her other side. She turned to look at him and saw that, for the first time since she’d seen him in the waiting room, the look in his eyes wasn’t either sullen or murderous. It was…she blinked her eyes to clear them and squinted at Phil. Yes, it was worry. Or sadness. Or something along those lines. “Mom, I want to stay with Uncle Theo tonight. Please?”

Were all eleven-year-old boys equipped with the same ability to turn their mothers into half-melted butter? This had to be unique among the Derensky children. She remembered Forrest being able to get out of just about anything with the same pleading tone. “Fine, we’ll stay with Uncle Theo,” Dinah said, and spared a thought to the hope that she wasn’t slurring her words. This was a shitty example to set for her sons, but maybe she could keep fallout to a minimum. “And Bill. Theo, is Bill with you?”

“Yeah, I took him home. He’s useless right now.”

“Good,” she said. “I mean, good that he’s home. Not good that he’s useless.” God, she hoped he wasn’t going to get fired for acting like a human being. 

“Speaking of home, I better get these guys over there,” Theo said. He reached around Dinah’s back and, going by the indignant yelp, ruffled Phil’s hair. “It’s late and they need sleep.”

“You need to be with your sister,” Boaz said from where he was leaning against the bar, munching from the pile of Tam Tams that Benny hadn’t put down his throat. “If y’trust me with your car, I can drive ‘em home. You stay here with Dinah.”

Theo scratched his temple. “How much have you had to drink today?”

“Three beers at the party, but that was hours ago,” said Boaz. “Had a lot of water since then. I’m fine to drive.”

“Okay.” Theo threw him his keys, which Boaz neatly caught. “Just don’t drive like a maniac. I don’t want to have to bail anyone out tonight. Noah and Dwight already ran off somewhere, and it’s probably criminal.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Boaz jingled the keys and stood up. “Come on, boys, your mam’s got to have some time with your uncle. Come with me, I’ll take you home.” Miraculously, both Phil and Caleb trailed – yawning, that must have been why - after him, two ducklings after a baseball-cap-billed mallard, and Caleb even put in the effort to close the door after Phil and Boaz had disappeared through it in front of him. Would wonders never cease? 

“Benny,” Dinah said as she held up her empty glass, “I need more booze.” The edge of the glass, she saw, was filmed with wine-sugary lip prints, and when she experimentally touched the rim with her lips, it was sticky. 

“Got to open another bottle, then. Just a minute.” Benny bent down behind the bar and came back up with a full bottle, which he expertly jimmied open with a corkscrew. The empty bottle was standing next to the re-stacked pyramid of clean wineglasses. “How much d’ye want now?”

“Gimme as much as you’re comfortable with,” she said. Benny poured her glass a third or so of the way full – bastard – and she made a face at him before raising it to her mouth again and sipping. _Tastes way better going down than beer does coming up_ , she thought, and giggled, then rested her elbow on the bar for better drinking support. 

The world narrowed to the blurry golden liquid in her glass, the rushing of her own blood in her ears, and the faint buzz beyond her borders of the conversation that Theo was having with Bram. Dinah couldn’t be sure, since it was beyond her jurisdiction, but she thought that Theo might be debating the merits of scotch versus whiskey with himself while Bram listened and grunted agreement. Sounded like the kind of thing her brother would do. 

So would Vince. If he were here right now, he would poke fun at her so hard for sitting there like a morose wallflower and drinking alone. Dinah took another swig and inhaled hard; the smell of her sweaty hair hit her nose hard. Vince’s hair got sweaty, too, especially in bed in the morning, and she always had to get on his case to get in the fucking shower already, but it was a smell she wouldn’t trade for the world. 

She couldn’t anymore, she realized. That smell was gone from her life forever, and soon she would forget. And with that, she felt her throat tighten. 

“Dinah?” Benny asked. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she choked. “No. No.” Her vision was all blurry again, but this time, it was from the tears gathering in her eyes and spilling hot and wet down her face. “Vince is _dead_ , Benny,” she said around a hiccup. “He’s _dead_.”

“Oh, shite.” Benny set down his cloth and came around the bar to swoop her up in a hug. “Theo!” he shouted, arms around her. “Theo, it’s hittin’ her.”

“Fuck, Dee…” Then Theo’s arms were around her, too, and Bram’s, and she was slipping off the stool and sinking to the floor with the safety net of their hugs surrounding her. The hiccups and sobs came as uncontrollably as the memories flashing through her head: Vince’s smell, Vince’s soft curls when she buried her hands in his hair, Vince’s smile when she held his head against her belly so that fetal Phil would kick him in the ear. That was all that she had left of him now, and it wasn’t the same. It would never be the same again. 

“Shhh, Dee,” Theo said in her ear. “It’s okay. Get it out.” Someone’s arms tightened around her waist and she leaned into a shoulder. “Take as long as you need.” There was a hand stroking her hair, running fingers through it to her neck. 

_Dayenu_ , she thought. _This’ll have to be enough_. And with that, she sank into the fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys want to yell at me for this chapter, I can be found at godihatethisfreakingcat.tumblr.com . 
> 
> Glossary  
>  _Beshert_ : (a match) made in heaven (Yiddish)  
>  _Hi atzuvah_ : she's sad (Hebrew)  
>  _Rotzeh litkan, shoteh_ : (I) want to cheer her up, you fool (Hebrew)  
>  _Mitzuyan_ : excellent (Hebrew)  
>  _Todah_ : thank you (Hebrew)  
>  _Ka'itz, lo?_ : fun, no? (Hebrew)  
>  _Ken_ : yes (Hebrew)  
>  _Dayenu_ : (it would have been) enough (Hebrew), the title of a popular Passover song. 
> 
> Tim Tams are matzah crackers commonly eaten in the US during the Jewish holiday of Passover, since those who observe the holiday can't eat anything leavened (bread, beer, etc.). 
> 
> And for those of you who would like family trees that connect characters to names, here they are. Warning: they're massively spoileriffic for this chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  


	10. Neither Can the Floods Drown It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day looks very different when seen through different sets of eyes.

 

 

i.

This was the third day in a row that Dinah had awoken to the sun on her face while tangled in a nest of other people’s limbs, but it was the first day that she’d awoken there to Theo shaking her. “What?” she mumbled into the pillow smashed against one cheek. “Theo?”

“It’s the funeral today, Dee,” Theo said gently, incongruous with the hard shake he gave her shoulder “C’mon, you gotta get up.”

 _Fuck_. “Fine,” she said, and sat up. Phil and Caleb were entwined leg-over-leg, sprawled over Bill, who himself looked to have had an arm across her back until she moved. “What time’s it again, Theo?”

“Right now, it’s seven, but the funeral’s at nine-thirty,” said Theo.

Dinah stretched her arms up over her head, accidentally bumping a nearby Rug in the fuzzy noggin in doing so. He meowed angrily at her and stuck his claws into the bottom sheet. “Do I have to?” she asked as she gave Rug an apologetic scratch under the chin. Yes, it was an amazingly childish thing to say and she was already feeling secondhand embarrassment for herself, but it had to be asked - just in case there was any chance she didn’t have to look at Vince’s coffin while a rabbi dryly droned on, summarizing his life when no one truly could.

“Yeah, you have to.” Theo scratched the base of Rug’s tail, and Rug canted his butt up towards his hand. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s gonna guard the house while Aunt Dee goes to a boring funeral?”

“Vince’s funeral is _not_ going to be _boring_ ,” Dinah said, although the question made her smile. “Melkor said he’ll play ‘Highway to Hell’ like he wanted, remember? And since when am I anyone’s aunt?”

“Since Rug became my cat son,” Theo answered, deadpan. “And I got my doubts about Melkor. You remember how many times he threatened to blame us if someone sued?”

Dinah huffed and rolled her eyes. “No one’s suing,” she said as she stretched her legs out. “I mean, God, it was _Vince’s_ will, and it’s not like I’m contesting it.” Before she’d sat down in a funeral parlor two days ago, still drained and shaky from crying herself to sleep in Theo’s arms and bed the night before, it had never struck her how ironically twisted it was that Vince had to be dead to enjoy the song he’d stuck in the will as a funeral demand.

“Dinah, you’re up?” Bill said with a yawn. She glanced at him while he disentangled himself from the covers and both of her sons. He had the worst bedhead she’d ever seen outside of her own family’s heads, his face was creased from the pillow, and she could practically _see_ his breath, but Theo was just looking at him with that weird fond expression. Must’ve been love, or mockery would have come into the picture by now.

“Gotta go to the funeral,” she said with a shrug that she hoped came across as nonchalant. She did not need another night of informal suicide watch. “I think we need to be at Melkor’s early.” While she’d lost the bet with herself in that Melkor had not, in fact, let his sons commandeer the funeral, he’d still done a bang-up job as far as she could tell. It wouldn’t do to invoke his curmudgeonly old-man wrath by not being early enough.

“Then you’d probably best wake the boys up,” Bill said. A slight nod and a glance that he held with her for a few seconds longer than was necessary were the only indicators that he’d heard her tone, or maybe divined the reason behind it. “If they’re going to mess about getting ready…”

“Oh, they definitely will,” Dinah told him. “Yeah, they’re kids. They’re going to mess around.” She shook the shoulder of the son nearest her, which turned out to be Phil. “Phil, hon, time to get up. It’s Dad’s funeral today.”

Instead of opening his eyes, Phil rolled over and faceplanted into the pile of comforter at the end of the bed. “Don’t wanna,” he said. Jeez, when they said that the phrase _I hope you have a kid just like you_ was a curse, they weren’t fucking kidding.

“You gotta. Up and at ‘em.” She pinched a fold of skin over his collarbone just hard enough to make him whine into the bedclothes. “Uncle Theo was nice enough to put you and your brother’s suits out after you went to bed, so you don’t even have to bother finding your clothes. You can be a lazybones _after_ you put it on.”

“I don’t want to see Dad’s _body_ , okay?” Phil said angrily, lifting his head out and glaring at her. His face was red from its prolonged crushing against the comforter, which made him look way more riled up than he probably was. “ _You_ didn’t look at Dad’s body!”

“ _Phil!_ ” Theo said. “Shut the hell up, kid.”

 _Below the belt_. Theo was absolutely right. Where had she gone wrong, to have raised a kid who was such a selfish little fucker in times of stress? He needed a good whack upside the head from someone his own age. “Yeah, I didn’t look at your dad’s body and neither will you. We don’t do open caskets, Phil, what the hell’ve you been reading?”

“Noah said –“

“Don’t listen to Noah,” Dee interrupted him. “And I mean ever.” Dwight, at least, had a perfectly good house of his own. She saw no reason why he couldn’t bring Noah there and have wild sex instead of camping out on her brother’s couch with the troublemaker and filling Phil’s head with lurid, macabre crap. Maybe Noah had valid reasons for wanting to stay away from a house that had Danny in it, or to avoid bringing a lover home, but Dwight had no such excuse. _His_ brother had his own apartment. “You won’t see any bodies at the funeral, Philip Tuvia. Now get your buns out of bed.”

“You’re not making Caleb get up,” Phil complained. He ruffled the blond haystack on his head, which – while impressive – was still puny in comparison with Bill’s mess.

“I will as soon as you stop arguing with me,” she said. “Caleb?” She put a hand on Caleb’s head. “You awake yet?”

Caleb stirred with a rustle of thin, ever-lengthening arms and legs in the crisp cotton of the sheets. The child was turning into a praying mantis before her very eyes. “Now I’m awake,” he said. “’S’it time to get up, Mom?”

“It is, Caley.” Dinah allowed herself one run of her fingers through Caleb’s curls. “We need to be at the funeral home in about two hours.” She looked at the clock: seven-ten. “No, an hour and fifty minutes. We need to start moving.”

“Oh.” Caleb sat up and looked at her, then at Theo. “I think I want to change in the bathroom. Will you change with me, Uncle Theo?”

To his credit, Theo didn’t laugh or even tell Caleb that he was too old to be pulling this shit, like Dinah wouldn’t have been surprised to hear if this were any other occasion. “Sure, Caley,” he said instead. “Phil can come, too. We’ll do guy time in the bathroom.” A snort escaped her, and Theo shot her an evil look. “That’s disgusting, Dee.”

“Then I’ll come, too,” said Bill. “We’ll have a bit of fun and you can watch me shave. Your mother can have the bedroom all to herself.”

“I already know how to shave,” Caleb said, standing up. “I watched Uncle Theo shaving his neck beard, right, Uncle Theo? You rub the razor on your face and then you yell a lot and start bleeding.”

“Er.” Bill’s mouth and forehead wrinkled into an expression of disgust. “That’s the worst-case scenario. It shouldn’t happen if you’re careful.”

“No,” Dinah said, “I think Caleb’s got it right.” Especially when Theo was in college and still living at home. She could swear that there were some bloodstains in the tile grout that neither Theo nor Mama had ever quite managed to scrub out. “Phil, go watch your uncle shave his neck. You can learn a lot from his profanity.”

“Come on, you two, we need to give your mom time to dress in here,” Theo said. “I’ll teach you how to shave your necks and swear in Hebrew.” He bent down and picked the boys’ suits up off the floor where they were laid out. “Bill, can you get my suit out of the closet with your stuff? It’s in a garment bag.”

“Sure,” Bill replied. He stood up, and Dinah saw that his pajama top was coming unbuttoned. At least he’d worn pajamas, which was probably a nod to the fact that she was there. Theo was wearing boxers and a tank top that had fallen apart most of the way. “Just a minute.”

“Do I have to take a shower with Caleb again?” Phil said, and made a face. “He’s gross.”

“Shut up!” Caleb stuck out his tongue at Phil. “At least I didn’t pee in the shower!”

“Hotel room,” Dinah said, in response to Bill sticking his head out of the closet, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. “This was three years ago. We were on a time crunch.”

“Got it.” Bill’s head disappeared, the situation apparently having been explained to his satisfaction. He reappeared a few minutes later with Theo’s suit over one arm (and dragging on the floor), and another set of clothes over the other. “All right, have we got all our things?”

“Underwear,” said Theo, and pulled a pair out of his drawer. They were not, Dinah was relieved to see, novelty boxers. The ones he was wearing were patterned with pineapples, and she could only imagine the embarrassment if his pants were to fall down at the service – besides the obvious, of course. He waited for Phil to stand up and then put a hand on one of each of the boys’ shoulders, corralling them towards the bathroom door. “Come on, in with you two.”

“Right behind you,” said Bill, following them. The door closed behind him, and Dinah was left with only Rug, who stared at her with luminous green eyes.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’m not the one who abandoned you.”

Rug _mrr_ ed, then jumped off the bed and headed out the bedroom door, probably for greener and more delicious pastures. Dinah quickly shed her nightgown and underwear, then wiggled into her undergarments and put on the rest of her outfit as quickly as she could. The black skirt and black velvet blazer were way too hot for July and she definitely wasn’t sure about the short sleeves on the blazer, but that was the thing about Jewish funerals: they were, by nature, short notice. You had to get the body in the ground as soon as possible, and she supposed that did make sense (albeit in a really disgusting way).

“Mom?” There was a knock from the other side of the bathroom door. Phil. “Are you done in there yet?”

“Almost,” she said. “Can you wait a second, Phil? I need to find my shoes.”

“Phil,” came Theo’s voice, “if you need to go to the bathroom, there’s a toilet right here.”

“But you’re looking at me!” Phil protested. “I can’t go if you’re - _ew_ , Uncle Theo, Caleb farted!”

“You’re a liar! I didn’t!”

“Sorry,” said Bill. “That would be me.” Dinah could only imagine that he looked completely shamefaced, and of course, Theo was laughing like a loon.

“Do me a favor and stop with the guy noises,” she said loudly. Theo didn’t stop laughing, but the noise did subside into a very nasal snort. “Yeah, thanks for your consideration. I’m done.” She slid her feet into her black slip-ons and considered maiming whoever it was who’d said that women always took longer to change. If they were dead, she’d dig them up. “You can come back out here. I’ll wait in the hallway.”

“ _Ow!_ ”

“Mom, Uncle Theo cut himself,” Caleb said, completely unnecessarily. “He’s dripping in the sink.”

“Great,” Dinah said. “Look, if you need me, I’ll be in the hall. Try to step on it, okay?” She left the room and closed the door behind her, then flipped the light switch. Why the hell did Theo think it was a good idea to keep his hallways this dark at night when people were over? For the haunted house atmosphere? Yes, she thought with a nod, it was almost certainly that. Her brother was just that weird.

A few minutes later, the door opened and the four suit-clad (except for Bill) guys appeared. Phil and Caleb even looked like they’d had their hair combed – forcibly, maybe, going by the looks on their faces, but still. “Mom, we’re all dressed,” Phil said. “Do we have time to have breakfast? Dwight always wants breakfast.”

“Definitely,” she said. “But first…” She felt ridiculous asking for this, but something was happening today that she shouldn’t have experienced for at least another forty-five years, and breaking down in the middle of it would just add a metaphorical nut-punch to injury. “Can I get a group hug?”

She was dog-piled before the last word had completely come out of her mouth, and someone had definitely forgotten to shower. Still, it wasn’t a bad way to start this fucker of a day.

 

 

ii.

Noah always clung in his sleep, so when the sound of several pairs of feet pounding down the stairs – as opposed to the barnacle wrapped around his chest and stomach – woke Dwight, he knew that something had woken Noah up first. “You up?” he slurred.

“Yeah, been up,” Noah answered. Dwight opened his eyes to find that his husband (a weird thought if there ever was one) was curled up on the other end of the couch, fiddling with his phone. “Danny called and freaked out at me ‘cause Oreet got her period in the middle of the night. I’ve been talking him down for hours.”

“You two better not be porking down there!” Theo shouted from the general area of the stairs.

Noah smirked. “Can’t pork near a Jewish funeral,” he said. “It’s massively unkosher.”

“I’m pretty sure Omer could dig up some law that says you’re right,” Dwight said. He threw off the quilt he’d slept under, yawned hugely, and moved to put an arm around Noah’s waist. “Morning. You still calming Danny down now?”

“Texting.” Noah shook his phone at Dwight. “I’m sick of talking in the bathroom. Danny can wait on a fuckin’ response.”

“You guys want some breakfast?” Theo asked, walking into the living room.

“Oreet got her period,” Noah said without even looking up. Theo made a revolted face; Dwight had to applaud Noah’s sense of comedic timing. “Danny’s having a freakout.”

“Did I hear you say Oreet started her period?” Dinah said from the doorway. For someone who’d just lost her husband, she sure looked put-together. Her long hair was down, and her knee-length black skirt looked nice with her black velvet jacket.

“Yeah,” said Dwight, “and Danny’s wigging out.”

“What’s he wigging out about?” Dinah asked. “Doesn’t he know what a period is?”

“It’s _Danny_ ,” said Noah. “He’ll find something to freak out about. In this case, he’s short-circuiting because Oreet’s not even eleven and now he’s going on about _childhood obesity_ and hormones and he doesn’t know how to get blood out of sheets and stuff.” He rolled his eyes so hard that Dwight half-expected them to keep going like a pair of those cheap googly eyes. “I told him he’s a hypocrite. He’s always been fat, but he didn’t get his first pube ‘til he was fifteen or something, and I know that because _I shared a room with him_.”

Dinah blanched. “Ew.”

“Exactly.” Noah stuck up both of his middle fingers. “I was six-ish. Giant ‘fuck you’ to my wang, right there.”

“You’re _really_ lucky the boys aren’t here right now,” Theo said. “This would be really awkward to explain.”

“Where’d they go?” Noah asked.

Theo shrugged. “Probably to go bother the cat. You two want some breakfast?”

“Already taken care of,” Noah said. He reached under the dust ruffle of the couch and pulled out a box that Dwight already knew was there, having seen Noah stash it there last night after a trip to the local gas station. “Cookie Crisp?” He waggled the box at Theo in a manner that was probably supposed to be enticing.

“You gotta be kidding.” Theo stared at the box. “That stuff’s super fuckin’ unhealthy. Phil and Caleb’ll get a sugar rush in the middle of the service.”

“Oh, come on, it’s a special occasion,” Noah said. Theo glowered, and Noah hastily backtracked. “I mean, not special like it’s good, just special like this isn’t something that happens every day. Thankfully. You know what I fucking meant, all right?”

“ _Yes_ , I know what you meant, weirdo.” Theo snatched the box, startling a laugh out of Dwight, and tore open the top and the bag inside in quick succession. “ _I’m_ not gonna get a sugar rush, though,” he said through a mouthful of barely-qualifying-as-cereal.

“Theodor, you’re spraying crumbs on the couch,” Dinah pointed out.

“And it’s gross,” Dwight said.

“Come on, you’re a _cop_. Haven’t you seen murders?” Theo made a mouth-fart, covering one of Dwight’s pant legs in crumbs and a half-chewed chocolate chip.

“Aw, yeah, Cookie Crisp!” Dwight looked at the doorway, where both boys and the cat had suddenly appeared. “Can I have some, Uncle Theo?” Phil asked. “I’m really hungry.”

“Sure,” Dinah said before her brother could open his mouth to let out the insult that Dwight knew had to be coming. “Just grab a b – okay, no bowls,” she amended as Caleb barreled over and stuck a hand in the cereal box. “Just be careful. Those are nice suits.”

“Hey, I want some, too!” Phil elbowed Caleb aside and grabbed a handful of cereal.

“Don’t shove your brother, Phil,” Dwight said. Fuck that ‘don’t scold other people’s kids’ crap. It took a village to raise grieving kids, Phil was being a little dick, and Dwight was staying in the kid’s uncle’s house, so that probably gave him honorary uncle status or something.

“Yes, Dwight, _thank_ you.” Dee put a few pieces of cereal in her mouth. “Feel free to keep doing that. I think you scared him.”

“Deer in the headlights,” Noah commented with a half-smile, then choked on his mouthful of breakfast sugar at a sudden buzzing noise. “Hold on,” he said, although it came out as more of a gargle. “My phone.” He pulled it out of his pants pocket and tapped the screen a few times, then gave a crumby sigh.

“What’s going on now?” Dwight said.

“She’s got diarrhea and he doesn’t know what to do.” Noah shoved the phone back in his pocket. “Swear to shit, I’m turning this thing off.”

“Noah, too much information,” Theo said. “And that’s your _sister_. Don’t go spreading her personal issues around.”

“I agree,” said Dwight, sneaking a look at Phil and Caleb. Both of them had the distinct look of children encountering an unexpected rotting corpse, and not the interesting kind from _Stand By Me_ , either. “Inappropriate, Noah.”

“Excuse me for answering your question,” Noah said. “Hey, Theo? That could’ve been any ‘she.’ You’re the one who said it was my sister in front of your nephews.”

“Oh,” Theo said, and filled his mouth with more cereal. Cookie Crisp, Dwight thought, probably tasted a hell of a lot better than his foot.

Then there was a hand on his head, and a growl burst out of his throat. “Noah.” He took the hand off and pretended to bite Noah’s fingertips, which got a laugh out of Phil and Caleb. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not a bobblehead?”

“Come on, you killjoy.” Noah reached up lightning-fast and stroked Dwight’s head again before he could stop him, this time scratching him behind the ears like a goddamn dog. “Rubbing a chrome dome’s good luck. Everyone knows that.”

“What’s a chrome dome?” Caleb asked.

“You know, a baldo. Like Dwight here.” Noah scratched behind Dwight’s ears. “That’s a good dog, Dwight.”

Dwight bared his teeth and growled at Noah, but just for a moment. “You’re getting creepy there, champ.”

“Can’t take a joke,” Noah said, brushing the crumbs off his khakis. It had been his idea to sleep in their clothes on the grounds that if they had something to potentially ruin, they wouldn’t have sex with each other the night before a funeral. Good idea, but now, Dwight noticed, both of their sets of pants were wrinkled. His thighs were also covered in a fine layer of gray cat hair, which would have been fine and dandy if he weren’t wearing black dress pants.

“Noah, you got cat hair on you,” he said. Noah was wearing khaki-colored cords, so he looked to have fared a little better, but the fur was still sticking up in all directions. It was sort of, Dwight realized with amusement, like Noah was the cat in this situation rather than Rug. “We need to buy a lint roller or something.”

“It’s not that bad,” Theo said. “No one’ll even notice unless they’re in your lap.”

“Well, I don’t plan to be in Dwight’s lap at the funeral, but I don’t know about him,” Noah said with a wink.

“Don’t even think about it,” Dwight said. “No, seriously, Noah, I see that look in your eyes. No shenanigans.” They’d had some great sex since their…what was it, anyway? It wasn’t exactly a shotgun wedding, even if Noah called it that. Nevertheless, despite the great sex, there was a time and a place for making innuendo, and Noah was squarely in Not the Right Time territory.

“No shenanigans,” Noah said, giving a barely-audible sigh. “And I bet I can rustle up a lint roller if you’re that bent out of shape about it.”

Dinah brushed at her skirt with her palms. “It’s okay,” she said. “Vince will understand. This family’s covered in crumbs and cat hair even when we’re not going to a funeral. It’s authentic, you know?”

“Yeah.” Dwight touched her hand, just in case she needed something to ground her. Dinah wasn’t exactly Vince’s polar opposite, but he’d been as sunny as the color of his hair would suggest, while she was usually more like Theo, save for when she’d been drinking – not down-to-earth per se, more of a heavy mix of cynical and affectionate. To see her with her normal personality broken into pieces, brought home in a flood of tears, had to have been scary as fuck. No wonder Theo had called him in a panic that night, asking him and Noah to stay.

Noah’d been pissed off at the interruption of their pre-marriage activities, but they’d come over anyway. This was, after all, the family that Dinah claimed it was.

“Don’t worry, Dwight,” Dinah said. “I’m going to be okay.” Though her smile was shaky, it was still a smile.

“Us, too,” said Caleb, and took his mom’s other hand, leaning his head on her shoulder. “Dad deserves a really good funeral.” There was Vince in his face, in his thin body, despite his mother’s strong coloring. Vince’s laughing eyes, brown instead of that nebulous color they’d always called “hella hazel,” were set deeply into his face, and that was definitely Vince’s smile.

He was right. Vince was dead, but there were pieces of him in Phil, in Caleb, even in those who’d known him best, like Dinah and Theo. “Yeah,” said Dwight. “Yeah, you’ll be okay.”

 

 

iii.

Phil didn’t really mean to start beating on Galil. It just sort of happened.

Okay, maybe it was more than just that. Mom would yell at him for beating people up and for lying if she knew. It started when Uncle Theo kept playing that stupid rock-and-roll recording of Hava Nagilah in the car on the way to the funeral home, and it was way too hot in there, and Caleb was a whiny baby the whole ride. He kept saying “Mom, my stomach hurts,” and Uncle Theo pulled over twice to make sure Caleb wasn’t going to toss his Cookie Crisp in his Charger. Sometimes, he thought Uncle Theo loved that dumb car more than he loved his family.

Then they got to the funeral home, which smelled like old people’s perfume and baby powder and that dead skunk that Caleb found on the sidewalk once, and Mr. Melkor – whom Phil wasn’t allowed to call ‘Old Man Melkor’ like Mom did behind his back – frowned and grouched at them about how Dad’s song request wasn’t appropriate for a funeral. Especially not a Jewish funeral.

“We Jews don’t believe in hell,” Mom told him when he gave her the news. She crossed her arms over her chest like he was doing to his and stared him right in the eye. “You know that. That makes it a more than appropriate song to play at his funeral. Thumb our noses at the Christian fundamentalists, huh?”

“The guests won’t approve,” Melkor grumbled. Uncle Theo was right – he was an old grouch, and he _did_ look like he’d just shoved a lemon in his mouth and another one up his ass. His mouth was permanently puckered, even when he talked.

“Mom,” Phil said, squirming on the dusty velvet couch, “I gotta go to the bathroom.” Melkor had brought them to a little room filled with plastic flowers and a lot of furniture that looked like people had died all over it. This place was making him have to pee like a racehorse.

“Me too, Mom,” Caleb piped up. “Really bad.”

Mom sighed. “Ron, where’s the bathroom?”

Melkor pointed a hard, wrinkly thumb back towards the door to the entranceway. “You go back to the foyer and you’ll find it,” he said. “First door on the right when you come in. Got two stalls in there.”

“Or Caleb can pee in the sink,” Phil said. He hated using the toilet at the same time as other people, even at school when he only had five minutes.

“Nice, Phil,” said Uncle Theo. “Real classy.” Melkor had made a big stink when Uncle Theo wanted to come into the ‘ _family_ room,’ as he said it, with a really big emphasis on the first word. But Uncle Theo had said that he was family, dammit, and then he made a fist, so Melkor stepped out of the doorway. Noah and Dwight and Bill hadn’t tried their luck, which was good. Dwight would probably pummel Melkor to a pulp, and Phil figured he didn’t want to get punched in the nuts. “You wanna go take your brother and find the head?”

“You make sure he doesn’t get lost, Philip,” Mom said, and that was how Phil ended up holding Caleb’s warm, sticky hand on the way to the bathroom. It _sucked_. He was almost eleven and a half years old and stupid Caleb was ten and a half, but he guessed Mom still thought they were babies who would wander off if they didn’t hold hands.

That was when it got worse. Right when they passed that bronze vase full of shiny plastic roses next to the stairway in the front hall, the door opened and Mr. and Mrs. Rabin came in with Galil. Phil wasn’t allowed to swear, but if he were sure that it wouldn’t get back to Mom and Uncle Theo, he would have said ‘fuck.’ They were the _last_ people he wanted to see at Dad’s funeral after what Galil had done to him.

Galil didn’t even look sorry, either! Just scared, and like he was about to grab his mother and use her for a shield. “Hi, Phil,” he said softly. “Hi, Caleb.” Jerk. He didn’t deserve to say hi to them ever again.

“Are you two doing okay?” Mrs. Rabin asked.

“We’re going to the bathroom,” Phil said. He knew it wasn’t really an answer to her question. Still, if he said no, they weren’t okay because her son was a dad-murderer, he’d get in so much trouble. It was true, but he’d get grounded for at least a year.

“I have to go, too,” Galil said.

“You can go with Phil and Caleb,” said Mrs. Rabin, and Phil must have made one of his growls, because she looked at him weirdly. “Phil, are you all right?”

“Yeah, he can come with us.” Stupid Galil. He should’ve peed before he left his house, but that just showed that he was a baby who couldn’t think at all. Even his black suit was stupid. It was too small for him, and the color made his hair look like someone barfed on his head.

“But Mr. Melkor said there’s just two stalls,” said Caleb, furrowing his brow. “Galil’s gonna have to pee in the sink, like you said.”

Phil stuck his elbow into Caleb’s side. “Shut up!” he said through gritted teeth. “He doesn’t have to pee in the sink. That’s gross.” He looked at Mr. and Mrs. Rabin to make sure they weren’t mad at Caleb for having what Mom called a ‘gutter mouth’, and was relieved to see that Mr. Rabin looked like he was smiling through his beard.

“You three go ahead,” Mrs. Rabin said. “Galil, come find us in the main room when you’re finished. We don’t want to be late for the service.”

“He won’t be late, Sima,” Mr. Rabin said. “I don’t think the rabbi’s even here yet.”

Mrs. Rabin looked at the gold watch on her left wrist. “Well, he could get here any second. It’s better to be early than late.” She pushed a lock of hair out of her face and reached back to adjust her bun. “Go on, Galil, find the bathroom if you need to go.”

“I…” Galil began, then looked from Phil to Caleb to his mother. “I don’t think I have to go so bad, _Ima_.” Was he scared of them? Good. He deserved to be scared. Phil had watched movies with Uncle Theo where someone killed someone else’s father, and if he’d learned anything from them besides Uncle Theo’s commentary that all that blood was unrealistic, it was that you owed someone else a really big debt when you killed their relatives. Galil was going to owe him and Caleb and Mom forever.

“ _Go_ , Galil,” Mrs. Rabin said. She sounded snappy, like she was getting impatient. “You won’t be able to go if you decide you need to during the service.” She reached down and smoothed Galil’s hair with her palm – it didn’t work. “We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Galil whispered. His parents started to walk down the long hallway, dark even though it was the middle of the day, and Phil led him and Caleb to the bathroom door. It looked really ugly next to the front door, which was heavy glass with dark, curly designs on it. Mom said that this place used to be a house where people lived instead of died, and the door definitely looked like something that people would choose for their house if they lived a long time ago.

The bathroom stank like old people. “Ew,” Caleb said after the door closed behind them. “You can go first, Phil.” He sat down on the armchair across from the sink, both of which were old and stained, and looked like they were about to fall apart. “I can wait until you’re done.”

When Phil went into one of the stalls, he saw that the toilet was old, too. It had a chain to pull instead of a lever to push, and the lid of the tank was cracked across the middle. Maybe because of that – or maybe because he could hear Galil in the next stall – it took a while for him to be able to pee, but he managed to do it anyway. The toilet made a really loud sound when it flushed, like Uncle Theo’s old car with the terrible muffler before he bought his Charger (Mom had to talk him into getting a new one and then, like she usually said while rolling her eyes, _of course_ he got the fanciest one he could find).

Then when he went to wash his hands, the taps had green stuff on them where they attached to the sink, and the water came out brown for a few seconds before it turned clear. “This place is really gross,” he said, the flush of a toilet drowning out half his sentence. He hoped Caleb would hear him anyway; he’d gone into the stall when Phil left. Galil came out of the other stall and stood behind him.

“Will you be done soon?” he asked.

“I’ll be done when I’m done,” Phil answered. He wanted to growl at Galil, and this time, he wouldn’t pretend it was something else. More than that, he wanted to scream at him. He wanted to _hit_ him and kick him and punch him so hard he fell onto the floor. What right did he have to stand there and whine when he was the reason Dad was dead?

“But you’ve been washing your hands forever,” Galil said in that horrible baby voice. Phil ground his teeth together, turned off the water, and went to get a paper towel. Keeping Galil out of the sink wasn’t worth having to hear him gripe. Galil, he decided, needed to keep his mouth shut if he didn’t want trouble. He wasn’t the one who was hurt, even though he’d been the one to run into the street, and both of his parents were fine.

Caleb flushed and came out of the stall, and Phil moved to the armchair that his brother had vacated, then crossed his arms and rested his elbows on the armrests. Galil was sagging against the wall with his eyes closed. “Hey, Galil!” he said. “Are you dead over there?” He looked like it, all right. Under the flickering ceiling lights, his skin was grayish, like he was about to either keel over dead or faint.

Galil snapped his eyes open. “No,” he said. “Hey, Caleb, you’re taking all the paper towels!” He reached over to the stack of paper towels and knocked Caleb’s hand away. Drops of water scattered all over the mirror and down into the soap dish.

This wasn’t Galil’s day. _This wasn’t his day_. Phil got onto his feet, charged over to the sink, and shoved Galil hard into the edge of the sink. “It’s not about you!” he yelled. “Our dad’s dead and it’s _your_ fault. Shut up about paper towels!” He drove his fist into Galil’s stomach, a move that didn’t work very well because Galil’s stomach was fat and solid enough that his hand kind of bounced off. He couldn’t even punch him like he deserved.

“Ow!” Galil cried out. “Phil, what are you doing?”

“You’re a dad-murderer.” Phil shoved his hip into Galil’s side and pushed him harder into the sink. Maybe he couldn’t beat him up right, but he was going to try his best, because Galil owed his whole family for taking Dad away. Dad wasn’t going to be able to tuck them in at night anymore or make them sundaes or soothe their nightmares, and Phil had woken up with nightmares since he died.

“Phil, quit it!” Caleb said. “You’re gonna get in trouble!”

“I don’t _care_.” Phil punched Galil’s belly again, and going by the grunt he got, he was effective this time. “Caleb, he killed Dad!” The people in movies always knew what to say at times like this without sounding seriously awkward, so as quickly as he could, he searched his brain for the right phrase. “We can’t let him get away with it.”

“I didn’t kill your dad,” Galil protested, both hands on his belly. He didn’t sound like he really believed it, though, because his voice was all wavery. “Your mom said I didn’t. She said it was okay!”

“Mom was _lying_.” You didn’t tell someone that it was their fault someone was dead, not if you were a grown-up. Didn’t he know anything? Phil grabbed two handfuls of Galil’s hair and pulled on it hard. Tears immediately appeared in Galil’s eyes. “If you didn’t run out in the street instead of waiting for your dad, our dad wouldn’t’ve run after you and he’d still be alive!”

“Yeah, Phil’s right!” Caleb went up behind Galil and yanked his arms back, or at least tried to. It wasn’t even hard enough to get his elbows out to the side, because Caleb had weak, skinny arms, but at least it was something (not like Galil was trying to fight back, anyway). It meant Caleb wasn’t about to go running off and tattle to Mom and Uncle Theo. He had Phil’s back, even if he couldn’t pull Galil’s arms behind his.

Phil felt a grin spreading across his face. He gave Galil another push, and stomped on one of his feet for good measure. “See, Galil? Caleb says I’m right, too.” His heart was hammering and his forehead felt sweaty, but it didn’t matter because right now, he wasn’t even Philip Tuvia Adler-Derensky anymore. He was Magneto, or maybe Batman, throwing vigilante justice into people’s faces behind the authorities’ backs. Magneto was invincible and so was he, and Magneto had never gotten in trouble with his mom for it, either.

“Phil,” Caleb said.

“What?” Phil looked up from another stomp to Galil’s shoe, this time with all the power he could muster up to slam it down. His eyes caught on Galil’s face, which was red and teary; his lower lip was wobbling, and he still hadn’t even made a move to try to get away, much less punch back. He probably didn’t have any fighting spirit at all.

“I’m not gonna hold him anymore.” Caleb dropped Galil’s arms. “It’s probably time for the funeral, anyway. I have to talk about Dad and I don’t want to be late.” His eyes were fixed on the ground, and half his lower lip was between his teeth. Probably scared he was going to get beat up, too, and honestly, he should’ve. Who made a promise and then welched five minutes later?

But he might have been right, and if he was, then Phil needed to get out to the funeral, too. Mom would come looking for them if they were late. He pointed at Galil as he stepped back from him and looked him up and down to see if he was bleeding, which it turned out he wasn’t. Good. “Don’t tell your mom and dad about this,” he said in the scariest voice he could get out of his throat. He wished he’d thought to say that earlier, because Mr. and Mrs. Rabin were pants-wettingly scary when they were mad. It was why Galil hadn’t had to talk to any of Dwight’s police friends after the accident.

“I w-won’t,” Galil said with a hiccup. “Promise.”

“Good.” Phil pointed at him one more time for good measure, then reluctantly took the hand that Caleb held out and went back into the main hall, where the throbbing guitar strains of Dad’s favorite song were waiting for them.

 

 

iv.

The chairs in the funeral hall were padded, but Bram’s seat was still hard against his rear. He shifted from buttock to buttock and clamped his lips together to avoid loudly asking why there couldn’t be softer chairs for funeral-goers. Ron Melkor was adding insult to injury for people who were already in mourning, who

_the rabbi’s face is loud and Benny’s  
hair is bright as fire and sounds build upon  
sounds to strike a clangor in my head_

had headaches. There was a head of paprika hair next to him that hurt his nose from the strength, and it belonged to his cousin. But his mind was wandering again and this wasn’t the time. This was Vince’s funeral. Boaz and Benny had talked to him about the consequences of interrupting people’s time before. He pressed his fingertips to the shimmy of veins beneath his forehead and tried to ignore the spice.

But it was hard to ignore the spice sack. Benny took up nearly two chairs, and as Bram watched, he shifted and both of the chairs that took his weight creaked, bringing a blush to his cheeks and a crease of shame to his brow. It was unkind of Melkor to buy terrible chairs, really, when some mourners were fat and bound to be humiliated as a result.

Bram leaned over and patted Benny’s knee. “ _Atah yafeh m’od,_ ” he said. Benny tilted his face up with a puzzled blink. Oh. He must not have understood the onrush of thoughts through Bram’s head, even though they had to be visible in a blue whoosh,

_the scars in my head are the_  
_scars in the body are the_  
_scars in the seams of the wood that_  
_make up this funeral hall and it could be why_

flooding over as fast and hot as the blood had flooded out of Vince’s body. It had broken. He wondered how well Melkor had been able to sew him up; it was funny how much more easily humans could be put back together than eggs, but Vince had died and Humpty Dumpty hadn’t.

Rabbi Fleischer, whom Bram had heard joke at synagogue once that his name and his vegetarianism were constantly at war, finished a final deep ‘amen’ and cleared his throat. “Vincenzo’s son Caleb would like to say a few words about his father,” he said into the microphone on the lectern. The black of the microphone clashed with the deep brown wood of Vince’s coffin and Bram’s eyeballs were whimpering. He could hear them.

Boaz elbowed him. “Bram,” he said under his breath, “you’re shakin’. Can ye hold it together ‘til it’s over?”

“ _Ken_ ,” he said. There was English brewing in his cranial vault and it slipped up his throat as “douche”, but he burped it back down before it could come out and offend people. “ _Y’khol_.”

“Good,” Boaz said. “Good. Right, when we get home, you can stay in bed the rest o’ the day.”

That was the best solution. Bram let his eyes unfocus and blurrily looked up at the podium, where Caleb looked far too small to be standing there. He was too small to have a dead father, absolutely. “My dad,” Caleb said with a quaver in his voice, and stopped short. He tried again. “My…my dad was – the best.”

“God, is he going to make it?” Benny whispered.

“Wouldn’t’ve gone up there if he couldn’t,” Boaz replied.

Bram, for his part, squinted at Caleb. He looked like he was in the middle of swallowing down whatever was strangling him, and indeed, as soon as his throat stopped moving up and down, he found his voice. “Mom says that my dad brought Phil into the hospital half an hour after I was born,” he said. “She was really tired and they almost didn’t let Dad in ‘cause she says I took a lot of blood out with me.” A laugh ruffled the audience, and Bram smiled, even though he could see Caleb’s eyes nearly brimming over with tears

_Dinah broke like a_  
_machine and pieces_  
_hit the ground everywhere around her_  
_but he breaks as a waterfall_  
_in one smooth wet arc down down down_

and his chin shaking.

“Well,” said Benny, “would you look at that? Brave little bugger, eh?”

Boaz shushed him with a finger against his own lips, dividing his mustache into neat halves. It was a good look on him, Bram thought. “Don’t you ruin his moment, Ben.”

“Dad really liked popsicles,” Caleb said. By the second, his voice seemed to be casting off more of its quaver. “Even in the winter. But one time, Phil and I got the flu really bad and we were dehydrated and Mom kept trying to give us water, but it didn’t help. Dad only had one box of popsicles left, but he let us have all of them anyway. He held the sticks for us, too.”

Bram pressed the palms of both hands against his forehead. Oh, he wanted to laugh at that, and surely he would have been able to if the pain in his head wasn’t blocking the sounds in his throat. The paprika of Benny’s hair – and perhaps there was some cinnamon there, too – clashed wildly with the sweet smell of the gel in Boaz’s, and the walls were shimmering with the faint, muffled sound of a child crying somewhere.

“Mi- _graine_ ,” he ground out. His Hebrew capacities were trickling away with the blood pulsing through his swollen head. When he opened his mouth again, only air whistled and rasped against the back of his throat, not any more of the infrequent English that required no translation from his cousins. There were only isolated words bouncing against the walls of his swollen brain: the _balnoi_ of Russian that described his condition, the _douleur_ of French and his forehead both, and a clanging that needed no language but was louder than all of

_bells in my head bells in my  
ears ringing my nose my eardrums my  
brain and my eyes and my bones_

them combined.

“ – every time I got an A in something.” Caleb’s voice pierced through the clamor. Bram focused his fogged eyes on the boy at the podium, which was even larger than it had been five minutes ago. “Sometimes I got Cs, but he always said everyone’s good at different stuff and helped me study. I usually did better when he helped me.”

“Bram, you all right?” asked Benny. “D’you need to go home?”

Bram shook his head hard against the reciprocal shaking of his skull. No, he wasn’t going to let this earthquake of a migraine win. “ _Lo tzarikh_ ,” he said in as soft a tone as he could. Benny raised a skeptical eyebrow, shifting to more chili powder than paprika. There was no doubt that Boaz was doing the same. “ _Emet,_ ” he insisted. A child’s comfort was more important than his own.

“Mom and Dad did movie nights on the couch and we weren’t allowed to have any of their popcorn,” Caleb said, wrinkling his nose. “They were really gross. I don’t think they ever watched any of the movies.” Boaz snorted with laughter next to him. The sound wrapped around a spike of a sob from the child in the back and filled Bram’s head with the curdled metal smell of wet paint. “But it’s okay, because it meant they didn’t get divorced like a lot of my friends’ parents.”

Bram wished that he could give him a bear hug, or bring Benny up there to give him a better one. There was nothing in Caleb’s stance or tone that indicated he wasn’t up there completely wholeheartedly, or that his words weren’t his own. It was a rare ten-year-old whose sentences came out glowing like that. Bram remembered being his age; his bravery extended to daring to come inside with scuffed shoes after he kicked a can into the sunset.

“And I, um…” Caleb stopped with a spitty screech of microphone feedback and an uncomfortable look on his face, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. His next sentence came out tripping over itself. “Galil, I’m really sorry about what happened in the bathroom. I didn’t want to. I hope you’re okay.”

The sobs behind Bram grew louder at that, less muffled. He squinted and strained to see Dinah in the front row as she turned her head. There was a look of absolute bloody murder on her face, and he suspected there would be a whip-sharp, colorful questioning of both sons later. If the muscles of his head and neck would un-crimp enough to let him look behind him, he thought that he’d probably see both Rabin parents sporting similar looks.

“Wonder what he did,” Boaz murmured. Bram shook his head and declined to even try to answer. Instead, he put his head in his hands to drown out the sound of his headache and

_bells hit hard against my_  
_bones, on my brain, like they want_  
_to clang my name to me_  
_bram bram bram Bram BRAM_

v.

His eyes were blurry and hurting and his nose was a snotty mess and there was a wet patch on his collar and he couldn’t see _Ima_ and _Aba_ anywhere around him, or even remember where he’d left them. There was a man next to him who was skinnier and taller than Aba and he didn’t have a beard and he had long hair, but it didn’t matter because he needed a hug and a kiss and his blanket. His stomach was hurting and he needed to curl up in bed, under his blanket. He needed Caleb to say he was sorry to _him_ instead of telling it to everyone where it was going to get Galil in trouble.

“Who’s this?” said the man. His hair was as shiny as _Ima’s_ jewels, the ones he wasn’t allowed to touch even after he washed his hands, and he kept his voice in a whisper because Caleb was talking about all the good things his dad did for him before he died. It _was_ Galil’s fault he was dead, it was, Phil had the right to hit him because Galil Aaron Rabin was a dad-murderer like he said.

“Galil,” he said. Tried to say. His voice was thick in his throat and it was so hard to talk that it hurt. There was a lady next to the man, almost as pretty as him except her hair wasn’t as shiny or white, and she was looking at Galil, too.

The man elbowed the lady. “ _That_ Galil, Al?”

She nudged him back, and he hissed through his teeth. “Shut up, Randall. Your nemesis is going up there and you need a distraction.” She was probably his wife, and she was alive because nobody had run into the street and made her run after them. Galil’s eyes spilled over and his stomach knotted up and noises started coming out of his nose and throat again. His lungs and throat felt swollen and icky again, and now he needed to breathe, too.

Then there were hands under his armpits, and the man picked him up and put him on his lap. He hugged him and rubbed his back, just like _Aba_ did when Galil was having a lung attack in his throat, and he _shh_ ed him softly. “You’ll be okay,” he said, then he repeated it over and over into Galil’s ear while his hands ran up and down his back.

“Funerals are tough, aren’t they, pal?” said the lady.

They had it wrong. They didn’t know that Mr. Vince was dead because of what he did, and he didn’t deserve to be on anyone’s lap, but he couldn’t lie. _Aba_ always said that it was worse than anything to be dishonest. “It’s my f-fault,” he hiccupped. “I’m why he’s dead.”

The hands on his back suddenly stopped moving. “Jesus,” the man said. “Did Derensky tell you that?”

“No,” Galil said around new tears. “Phil and Caleb.” It took him a long time to get their names out, because his belly and his feet and the top of his head were still hurting from them beating him up, mostly Phil. He didn’t think Caleb wanted to beat him up, but he’d still held Galil so that his brother could do it, and he and Galil had had sleepovers before. That hurt even more than the punches.

“His nephews,” said the man as he started rubbing Galil’s back again. “He brought them to Take Your Kids to Work Day once.” He smelled really good, like that man perfume that some guys wore, except this one didn’t make him cough his lungs out or anything. One time, _Aba_ had to yell at some older boys who were wearing something that made Galil’s throat go tight and he called it _that damned Axe_ and Galil wasn’t sure how you could wear an axe, but he was still glad _Aba_ stood up for him. He wished he were on _Aba’s_ lap. This one was nice, though.

“Those are the ones whose dad is up there?” the lady asked. The man must have nodded or something, because she let out a big sigh. “Wow. This whole thing’s a giant clusterfuck. Honey – Galil, did you say?”

“Mm-hm.” Galil nodded and burrowed his chin into the man’s good-smelling neck. There wasn’t really any stubble on it, not like _Aba’s_ big, bushy beard. It tickled when he got good-night kisses. This man’s chin and neck didn’t tickle him at all.

“I’m so sorry they said that to you, Galil,” she said. “You’re not the reason Mr. Adler-Derensky is dead. It was an _accident_ , sweetie, do you understand?”

“Al,” the man cut in, sounding like he was about to laugh. “Alice, listen to this. Derensky’s actually killing it up there. Galil, it might make you feel better to hear it.”

Galil rubbed his nose on the man’s shoulder and hoped he wouldn’t notice. _Ima_ hated when he did that. When he focused his ears really hard, he could hear Dr. Derensky (“Call me Uncle Theo, jeez, Galil, I’m not old enough to be a fu – flippin’ emeritus”) talking where Caleb had been talking earlier. “- best brother-in-law ever, as well as the best dad, if you’d believe his son,” he said. “And Vince always taught his kids to tell the truth.”

The man snorted. “Not when it comes to other kids, apparently.”

“Randall,” the lady scolded, “behave.”

“What can I say about my brother-in-law?” Dr. Derensky said. It sounded like he was asking, but this was a funeral and Galil didn’t think anyone was going to answer. Then Dr. Derensky answered himself. “To Vince,” he said. “If you were born a year later, you’d have been right on time for the worldwide release of your favorite song, but as my sister has confirmed, you always had to come first.”

Everyone around them started laughing and Galil didn’t know why, but the man made a noise like he was choking on his spit. “Oh my _God!_ ” he gasped, once he’d finished coughing. “Alice, oh my freaking God, please tell me you heard that.”

The lady sighed. “I already heard him, Randall. I don’t need you to re-dub this speech. Keep your mouth shut or I’m delivering you to Dr. Derensky _hog-tied_ , and I’m letting him do whatever he wants to you for disturbing the funeral and being a nuisance.”

“You’re disturbing me, too,” someone complained. “Mom, I’m trying to play my game.”

“Luukas,” said the man a little more quietly and a lot more seriously, “unwritten rules.”

“But you _said_ I could and you broke your promise,” said Luukas, whoever he was, and that was interesting. Galil didn’t know there were going to be any other kids here. He wiped his eyes again – they hurt a lot, but he didn’t think he was going to cry again – and took his face out of the man’s neck, looking over his shoulder to where the voice was coming from. There was a boy with shiny hair the same color as the man’s sitting on his other side, and he had on a black suit that was way nicer than Galil’s.

“Remember what we talked about, Luukas,” the man told him. “Flexibility, right?”

“ _Right_ ,” the boy said. He frowned at the black thing in his lap, which looked like a Nintendo DS. Man, _Ima_ and _Aba_ said he couldn’t have one, but he’d wanted one for ages. It wasn’t fair that someone else got to bring one to a funeral. “But you were being really loud, Dad.”

The man gave Galil another couple of pats on the back. “Maybe Galil would like to share your game,” he said. “How about it?”

“ _Dad!_ ” Luukas slammed the game down hard on his lap. It went clattering onto the floor and slid under his chair, and Luukas’s face scrunched up like a stepped-on piece of paper. “Dad, you said I didn’t have to talk to people!” he said. His teeth were chattering, but it wasn’t cold in here, so that was weird. “I didn’t want to go and you said I could have the DS and I didn’t have to t-talk to anyone and –“

“You’re right, Luukas,” the man interrupted. He leaned in and put his arm around Luukas. “I did promise. Is the noise getting to you?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Luukas said. “A lot.” He pulled his knees up to his chest and put his arms around them.

“Me, too,” said Galil. Mr. Bram acted like Luukas sometimes, and Mr. Boaz said that he was ‘having an episode’ when he got shaky and went inside himself or sometimes screamed. “I’ll get your game.” It was his fault that Luukas had dropped it, too, but at least he could fix this problem.

“No, it’s okay,” said Luukas, rubbing his hand across his eyes. His voice, as _Ima_ said, went down a few notches in volume, and he knelt down to reach under the chair and get his DS. “I guess you can share if you want to.”

“Oh. Just if you want to.” Galil looked up at the man. “Um, I’m gonna get off your lap, Mr…I don’t know your name.” He should’ve asked it first thing – that was so rude of him. Good thing _Aba_ wasn’t there.

“Greenwood,” said the man. “Randall Greenwood. You can call me Randy – I mean, dammit, call me Randall!” The lady started laughing and he groaned. “And my wife is Aliisa, but you can call her Alice.”

“Randall and Alice,” Galil repeated. Both of them nodded. “Luukas,” he said, “what game are you playing?”

Luukas slid his eyes sideways at Galil. “Nintendogs,” he said after a few seconds. “You can watch if you want.”

“Progress!” said Alice. “Randall, shove over so Galil can sit down.” Randall nodded and moved without a word, and Galil took his seat. It was still warm from his butt, which reminded him of the butt-warmer in the front seat of _Aba’s_ car. Galil wasn’t technically allowed to be up there because he wasn’t twelve yet, but sometimes _Aba_ let him sit there when the car was just in the driveway.

Luukas held on tightly to his DS and, after a few seconds, pushed it a little ways across his lap. “This is my dog,” he said, pointing to the screen. “His name is Thrandy.” The dog had long yellow fur and looked like the kind that would make a piddle on your shoe and then pretend it didn’t do it in real life.

“’Thrandy’ is a weird name,” Galil told him.

Luukas shook his head. “It sounds kind of like my dad’s name, that’s why I named him that.” He pushed some buttons and the dog ran around in a circle. “Dad said I could play if I turned the sound off. Do you want to watch me feed Thrandy?”

“Yeah.”

“And then I’ll put him in obedience school.”

Galil had never had a dog, but maybe this was almost as good as having one. He’d have to ask Mr. Noah later. “Okay,” he said. “We can teach him how to do sit-ups and play dead.”

“Teach him how to sit up, you mean,” said Randall. “Galil, De… _Doctor_ Derensky’s speech is almost over, if you want to listen to the end.”

“Okay,” Galil said. “Thank you.” He made his ears focus again, because Dr. Derensky said things that made the grown-ups laugh and he wanted to remember them for when he was older. He didn’t understand why coming before a song was funny, but maybe he would someday.

“ – friend I had in a while,” Dr. Derensky was saying. “Vince, buddy, I’ll miss you.” He stopped and took a gulp of air. His voice was cracking up really badly. “You ended up being the best thing that ever happened to my sister, so I’m glad I didn’t shove you through the screen door when I had the chance. And I’m sorry I almost shoved you through the screen door.”

“With friends like him,” Randall mumbled.

Dr. Derensky raised his hand and cupped it around something invisible. “Here’s to Vincenzo,” he said, “husband, father, and the best Simon Pegg-imitating store manager ever. You’ll be missed.”

“To Vince,” everyone repeated, so Galil did, too. It didn’t seem so bad now, for some reason. Maybe Mr. Vince would forgive him someday.

 

 

vi.

Once, when Dinah was sick with a cold and had gone to bed early, Theo came over to watch movies with Vince and the boys. Phil and Caleb had fallen asleep across Daddy and Uncle’s laps, so they’d put them to bed and switched the viewing fare from family-friendly Teletubbies videos (which even Phil and Caleb had been old enough to laugh at mockingly by then) to a much cheesier and scarier bootleg copy of _Day of the Dead_. The scary part came from the fact that it was the terrible 2008 version, which had come out only months before, and neither of them had any idea how something Romero-approved with a budget to match could have such visible CGI.

“There’s gotta be a Zen koan out of all of this, you know, to avoid this kind of situation,” Vince had said thoughtfully while they watched a rage zombie chomp on the leg of one of the protagonists. “ _Do not stand at my grave and weep; I’m fucking dead, so move on, peeps._ ”

“Totally,” Theo had agreed.

“And then you can do the second verse: _Do not stand at my grave and cry; what the fuck did I just say, dude, I’m dead!_ ”

Back then, that had made Theo laugh so hard that his Red Bull came out his nose. Now, it brought a bitter twist to his mouth as the cemetery workers lowered Vince’s coffin into the ground. There was a white tent set up over the gravesite, courtesy of the fact that the day was hot and sunny as hell and, without it, the workers would probably drop the coffin on someone’s foot. Even Vince would probably object to that.

Rabbi Fleischer, who had followed them to the cemetery after the dubiously-successful service at the funeral home, started the Mourner’s Kaddish. He had a great singing voice (which was more like a chanting voice right now), even better than Cantor Saltzman’s, and Saltzman had graduated first in his class from cantor school or whatever the fuck they called it. Show-off yeshiva, maybe? Theo would have to Google it later, after everyone had left the post-funeral smorgasbord – or, as Noah had put it yesterday while they were planning it, the “stiff’n’stuff” - at his house.

He let his eyes wander over the funeral guests in lieu of listening to the Kaddish, which he was afraid would make him start bawling like poor Galil if he let himself sink into funeral memories. Gad had taken off his jacket, apparently having lost a battle with the heat if you went by how wet his beard looked, and there were huge sweat circles under his arms. Everyone else had shown a little more fortitude against the climate, but Theo kind of wished they had just bitten the collective bullet and taken off their coats like him and Gad. He had his own hanging off his hand, where Gad’s was draped neatly over his arm. The tent stank of sweat, and he closed his eyes and thought of the pies that Bill had made for today to distract himself. Bill himself was at home cooking, on the grounds that hadn’t known Vince long enough to truly merit inclusion at the more intimate burial ceremony. He was probably right, but dammit, Theo wished he had a hand to hold.

He also devoted a few seconds to mentally swearing at his nephews, who were not looking nearly as guilty as they should. Those two were going to be grounded until they were forty for what they’d done to Galil, enough to drive the kid into the arms of _Morningwood_ , cursed be Randy’s name. Had it not been for their need to get over to the cemetery on time, he had no doubt that Dinah would have whacked their asses red and raw for the first time, and he wouldn’t have made a move to stop her.

“Theo!” Dinah poked his ribs. How had he forgotten she was standing next to him? It was probably the heat, or at least that’s what he’d blame it on if she said anything.

“What?” he said.

She nudged him again. “Almost time to fill up the grave. I’m going first, but you can do a scoop after the boys if you want to.”

“Aren’t Vince’s parents better qualified to do that?” he asked. Well, sort of parents. They’d divorced years ago due to, according to Vince, “irreconcilable differences” regarding the fact that his father was an antisocial bag of dicks. Theo had met his mother and stepfather a few times, but given his stepfather’s expertise with computers and the mucho moolah that came with it, they traveled too much to be able to visit. Last he heard, they were living in Australia.

“My thoughts exactly, but no.” Dinah shook her head, pursing her lips. “I called them. Elazar’s in the hospital with pneumonia and Dvora can’t leave him. We…” She sighed. “We talked for a long time, though. She’s pretty broken up.”

“Was that when you shut yourself in the den?” Theo said, and watched the funeral workers clear away the cables they’d used to lower the coffin into the grave.

“…Theo.” Her tone was one of exaggerated, mocking patience. “I told you when I got out of there that I’d been talking to Dvora, remember?”

“Must’ve forgotten.” He shrugged. “Dee, you know my memory sucks.”

“Must be that.” Dinah took his hand and squeezed it. “Okay, I’m up. Don’t worry, you don’t have to shovel if you don’t want to.” She walked towards the grave, away from him and any protection he could give her, little enough as it was; he almost wished that they were four and twelve again, when her crawling into his bed was sufficient to solve both her problems and his. Their world was so much smaller and simpler then.

Omer, standing next to Gad, was glaring daggers into Dinah’s head as she took the shovel that one of the workers held out and hoisted a scoopful of dirt high. He’d done a stint in an Orthodox yeshiva back in the seventies, which he never shut up about (and which served as his qualifications to lead Hillel services in a flock of Jews otherwise uneducated in the “proper way”), and he was probably stewing about the fact that a woman was doing the honors. Theo didn’t think that Omer was really a sexist when it came down to it, but tradition was tradition and Theo didn’t have a problem admitting that the tenets of his religion had some issues.

Dinah lifted her chin, stared right back at him, and threw the dirt into the grave as hard as she could. “Good girl, Dee,” Theo whispered to no one. You couldn’t keep a Derensky down if you tried.

“Phil, Caleb,” she said, holding the shovel out in front of her, “do you want to come over here and do one?”

Phil and Caleb looked at each other, then hesitated a fraction of a second and ran over like there was a firecracker under their asses. Theo understood, after the lecture and yelling they’d gotten, but since he’d been administering about half the yelling, he knew it was completely justified. There was _no_ excuse for beating up another kid, especially one younger than you. Might not be a bad idea to invite Galil over and let him return the favor, let them see how it felt.

Caleb tried to pick the shovel up, failed, handed it over to Phil, and finally just took the handle while Phil grabbed the middle of the shaft. Another idea came to the forefront of his mind as he watched them scoop together: making them come to the Village and learn how to forge every weekend would undoubtedly make them suitably miserable, and give them some actual upper-body strength in the process.

“It’s your turn, Uncle Theo,” Phil said after they’d tossed in their shovelful of dirt.

“Okay, Philly.” He strode up and took the shovel, filled it as full as he could, and threw the dirt in to land on top of Vince’s coffin with a thump. “Dee,” he said, “do you want to do another one, or…”

“Can I do one?” Gad asked.

“But it’s for family,” Caleb said.

“Everyone here was your dad’s family, Caleb,” Dinah told him with a hint of a smile. Theo could swear that he saw her straightening up and holding herself taller. “Everyone. Theo, hand Gad the shovel, would you?”

He couldn’t argue with that logic. Theo waited as Gad rolled up his sleeves, then gave him the shovel. Omer was next, and then the Reisbergs (and Oreet had crazy strength in her arms if she could lift a shovel like that, a reminder not to get on her bad side would be awesome), and even Galil took a turn, although his fingers had to be pried off his mother’s sleeve first.

Scoop by scoop, the grave slowly filled up. Theo was very glad that Morningwood had had the tact to absent himself and his family, attached to his kid as Galil had been notwithstanding, before they moved to the cemetery. With his heart currently beating as a lump of sappy mush, Theo suspected he’d let even _him_ put in a scoop of dirt, and that was just an insult to Vince’s memory.

“Rabbi Fleischer,” said Dinah when the dirt mounded over the top of the grave, “do you want to take the last scoop?”

The rabbi blinked. “I’m flattered, Dinah,” he said, “and I’d be honored.” He picked up the shovel, which Danny had stuck in the mound one-handed after his last turn, and scraped one last shovelful from the scattered dirt remaining on the grass. When he was finished, he put his hands on his hips and looked down. “Vince deserves every accolade we can give him,” he said. “All I can say is this: we’re all going to miss him like hell. He was a man who defied description.”

“The kind of guy who probably planned to get buried on a hot day like this just to get one last laugh,” Theo put in. He wouldn’t have put it past Vince to whisper a suggestion to God and laugh his ectoplasmic ass off at them from heaven when it came to fruition.

Dinah ran a hand under her eyes. “It sounds like something he’d do,” she said quietly, then raised her voice. “Everyone? Thank you for coming today. Now, if you want, we’re going to go to my brother’s house for a reception and you’re invited.”

Theo knew that the cemetery staff was going to dismantle the tent and clear the debris off the top of the grave. He knew that it wasn’t their job to finish everything. But as he drove away, Phil and Caleb chattering in the back seat, he couldn’t help but look back at the gravesite and think that there was so much they’d left undone.

 

 

vii.

The house was full of food and chatter, not that anyone would have expected anything less. There in the living room were Dwight and Noah with plates piled high, sitting on the same couch where they’d spent the last three nights curled around and tucked into each other. Dwight’s left hand never left Noah’s right the whole time they ate and talked, and the gold band over the knuckle of his ring finger glinted like an announcement in and of itself.

There was Oreet napping in a spare bedroom with Theo’s cat sprawled over her stomach, and of course Rug liked _her_ , when an attempt to scratch his chin had earned a set of puncture marks over the back of his hand. Danny had her hand in his and was petting Rug, even as – oh, what was that? Was Brian Feldman rubbing his back? It was easy to imagine things when the blinds were drawn and the early-evening light coming through the gaps between them was full of dust, but this couldn’t be mistaken.

(And poor Galil skulking in the yard while he tried to hold back tears that so obviously wanted to come out. The wisps of thoughts in his head spoke of blame, of sorrow that would take years to fully heal, and _oh, please believe me that it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. I never did and I never will._ A finger touched his cheek in consolation, but he couldn’t feel it. The source was too far removed.)

A flash away, and the baby inside Sima had her lying down in the guest room where Theo’s nephews usually stayed, grateful for the fact that Oreet and Danny weren’t particularly loud for the benefit of her headache. It had been a hard day for all, hot as it was. If he could have, he would tell her to sleep the evening away if she wanted, because her health came before the dredging up of memory going on downstairs.

There was Gad, glancing at the ceiling every so often as if he could see through it to the guest room above him, while Omer failed to distract him with stories of his more memorable platoon mates in Vietnam, circa 1971 ( _you don’t talk about it, do you, but the nightmares that keep you awake and sweating in the moonlit hours are more than simple anxiety over tomorrow’s services_ ). The Budin brothers bracketed them on either side, minus Bram – they had taken him home, these considerate cousins of his, and he had a pillow over his head to fight the same kind of headache that was threatening to fell Sima.

And there was the epicenter of it all, where a bird’s-eye view would show Bill cutting pies in the kitchen, pies that he could smell but never taste again. There was Theo at the kitchen table with his nephews’ hands in his, and Dinah sat across from them and ate potato salad in silence.

_Dinah, please listen._

_Dinah, I never wanted to leave you._

_Dinah, I love you with everything that I have._

She didn’t hear. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pressed his cheek against hers, and he didn’t feel her tense with recognition – only the tension of her jaw muscles while she chewed. His presence could get no stronger, and his ability to hold out this long had to be miraculous. _Dinah_ , he whispered, and hid his nose in her hair to touch her ear. _I’ll always be with you, but you have a life to live._

She lifted her head and looked her brother in the eye. “Theo,” she said in a measured voice, “stop talking about my high-school yearbook photo or I will end you. Some of us are trying to move on from the past here.”

And Vincenzo Avram Adler-Derensky smiled, kissed her cheek, and let himself fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary  
>  _Atah yafeh m'od_ : you (male singular) are very pretty/good-looking (Hebrew)  
>  _Ken_ : yes (Hebrew)  
>  _Y'khol_ : [I] can (Hebrew)  
>  _Balnoi_ : sick (Russian)  
>  _Douleur_ : pain (French)  
>  _Lo tzarikh_ : [I] don't need [to] (Hebrew)  
>  _Emet_ [It's] true (Hebrew)  
>  _Ima_ : Mom/Mommy (Hebrew)  
>  _Aba_ : Dad/Daddy (Hebrew) 
> 
> The Mourner's Kaddish, in Jewish liturgy, is a chanted version of the Kaddish prayer that - in other contexts - can signify such transitions as the beginning or end of a section of synagogue service. The words are the same; only the tune, or lack thereof, differs. 
> 
> I can be found at godihatethisfreakingcat.tumblr.com .


	11. I Am a Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Christmas season inevitably brings changes to everyone's households, whether they're Jewish or not.

“Are you sure you’ve remembered everything?” Bill asked. “You really haven’t got to go this moment, you know. You can always stay and do another sweep of the house.”

With a smile, Dinah shook her head and slammed the boot of her car shut, although it was so full that the normal slam was more of a soft thump. “Bill, if you want me to stay, you just have to say so.”

“Oh, no, no.” Bill leaned against the side of the car and shook his head. “No, Dinah, we’ve loved having you here, but I know Theo feels terrible about keeping you out of your house for five months.”

“Five months?” Dinah cocked her head. “It’s really been that long?”

“Yes. More than, actually.” Bill held up his hand and began to count down on his fingers. “Vince died on July fourth. It’s December twenty-first today, so five and a half months.” A cold wind began to blow as if in acknowledgement of the solstice, rustling the last brown leaves on the trees in front of the house and making him shiver under his jacket. “I know the boys have been talking about wanting to go home.”

Dinah blew a breath out hard through her nose. “Yeah, they have,” she said. “I’m sorry about that, Bill. They’ve been…difficult. Very difficult. There’s a lot for them to be ungrateful for right now and they’re definitely acting their ages about it.”

“Dee, you leaving?” Theo shouted from the front door before Bill could reply. “Wait for me.” He bounded down the front steps and engulfed his sister in a hug. “There,” he said after he had finished, and held her at arm’s length. “Now you can go. Just needed to get that one last hug in.”

“Wow,” Dinah said, and cough-laughed. She raised a fist and pounded herself in the middle of the chest. “Way to squeeze the breath out of me, bro.” 

“Oh.” Theo’s face fell a bit. “Sorry, Dee, I’ll just miss you.”

“I’m perfectly fine with loitering around here a while longer,” Dinah told him. “Dwight said he’d watch the boys all day if I wanted him to. You know Noah’d be ecstatic to get to feed them ice cream for dinner.” But the annoyed look on her face, which Theo with his growing smile didn’t seem to parse at all, betrayed her. 

“That would be perfectly fine, Dinah,” Bill said. “I’d just like to discuss this inside, if it’s all right with you.” He wrapped his arms around himself, not that it helped very much. The wind was cutting right through the thin polyester of his autumn jacket, which was entirely inappropriate for the season, and he felt like an old man. 

“Thin-skinned, are we?” Theo said, yet he still put a hand against the small of Bill’s back and began to walk him towards the front door. “You heard the man, Dee. Let’s go inside and sip some Earl Grey with our pinkies out.”

“I do _not_ put my pinkie out when I drink tea,” Bill said in his best affronted tone. Behind them, Dinah smothered a snort. “You’ve been watching too much Star Trek.”

“Captain Picard is hot.” Theo ushered him in, then closed the door after Dinah had entered. “I like authoritative British men, what can I say?”

“Captain _Pic_ …!” Bill shook his head and stared at Theo’s arse. How could someone so searingly attractive also be so talented at getting one’s goat? God had to have been asleep at the wheel when the time came to _evenly_ distribute talents and gifts. “Patrick Stewart was close to fifty even when that show was still airing, Theodor,” he said, “so if you’re about to suggest leaving me for him, you’re quite a bit too late. Unless…” he tapped his chin and pretended to mull over the idea. “…you have a fetish for Geritol and prostate cancer that you didn’t tell me about, in which case I wish you well.”

“That doesn’t sound hot at all. Looks like I’m stuck with you.” Theo turned around and bent to kiss Bill on the cheek, which Bill allowed, albeit with two fingers pointed towards his eyes and Theo’s in quick succession. He was on to him and his stalling ways, and he wanted Theo to know it. “Do you want a drink, Dee?”

Dinah sighed. “Nothing alcoholic. Hey, Bill, are you ever going to decorate that?” She pointed to the living room, where the Christmas tree that Bill had brought home the week before sat ceremoniously on an old striped bedsheet next to the fireplace. “If you’re going to piss the hardcore Jews off, you might as well go whole hog.”

“I’m sure I can arrange that, too,” Bill told her. 

“Badum- _tsch_ ,” Dinah said, tinking an imaginary cymbal. “So, a Christmas ham?” She elbowed Bill’s arm. “How about bacon and eggs? Lard in your pie crust? Seriously, I’m totally ready to go on this if you are.”

“I already use lard in my pie crust, thank you very much.” Bill returned the elbowing, which got equally-loud laughs from Dinah and Theo. While Dinah hadn’t quite inherited the impressive height that her brother had, she was still an inch or so taller than his piddling five and a half feet, and when she and Theo were amused enough to release their booming belly laughs, he felt as though he’d landed in the middle of Dungeons and Dragons as a Halfling. 

“All this talk about trayf is making me hungry,” Theo said as he rubbed his stomach. “Dee, do you want some Christmas cookies?”

“Theo, seriously, I’m not hungry,” Dinah said. If she were a cat, he thought her every hair would be standing on end and her tail would be vibrating with the desire to dart out of the house, but as was his talent, Theo seemed to be selectively blind. 

“Not hungry, yeah, right. Come on, sample the wares!” Theo spread his arms wide. 

“Are you sure Bill will let me?” she asked, no doubt referring to the squawk he’d let out when she sneaked up behind him that morning to grab a piece of dough out of the bowl. 

“Oh, rub it in a bit harder, why don’t you?” Bill said. He did wish she’d let that go. It wasn’t as though his wooden spoon had actually landed anywhere. “We’re going to be away for Christmas, if you recall. I can’t be expected to give up all of my festive traditions just because I live in a household with a religious difference, now can I?”

“It’s called a mixed household, if we’re going to be accurate,” Theo said. His smile widened into an oily leer. “And we definitely mix –“

“Shut up!” Dinah held up a hand. “I don’t want to think about your sex life in the daytime. I already had to hear it at night.”

“You were here for five months,” Theo said as he (thankfully, mercifully) disappeared into the kitchen. “What was I supposed to do, put on a chastity belt?” he called from what sounded like the pantry. 

Dinah looked at Bill and shook her head. He echoed the gesture. “How do you put up with him?” she said. 

“Do you really want an answer?”

“Nope.” She patted his back. “I’m going to go park my ass in the living room, since that appears to be what he wants me to do. You can follow me if you want.”

“You have a very interesting way of talking,” he said to her back as he did just that. He didn’t particularly mind the living room, though. The Christmas tree was real, brought back under cover of night both to satisfy Theo’s inexplicable spy obsession and to keep anyone who might complain from seeing the tree of the oppressors. Its origins were clandestine, but it had thrived in its pot, and it smelled wonderful. 

“Yup.” Dinah kicked off her shoes and sprawled across the couch. “It’s an acquired skill.” She rested her head against one of the armrests. “Anyway, tree decoration?”

Bill shook his head. “I’ve been putting it off,” he admitted. “My flat’s always been too small to really decorate a tree, so I always just got a miniature one. Now I’ve got this enormous living room to work with, and I’m stuck.”

“You could always buy a bunch of lights and just, I don’t know, cover the tree in that,” she said. “The really big ones, I mean, not those tiny bulbs. You know, the huge multicolored ones that sort of look like butt plugs?”

Bill took a few not-entirely-voluntary steps backward and tried to smooth out the horrified expression he was sure had burned itself onto his face. “I don’t want to know.” Dinah and Theo had clearly taken their bluntly strange tangents from the same source, one that had to be a few generations back. The descriptions of Tuvia and Rachel Derensky to which he’d been treated didn’t indicate that they were anywhere close to this vulgar. 

“Sorry,” said Dinah, a little shamefacedly. “If it’s any excuse, Theo hasn’t had a steady boyfriend in years. I always forget I gotta watch my mouth in his house now.” She put her hands behind her head. “And our friends have really dirty minds, too. I hate that you have to deal with this much gutter talk.”

“I work at a hospital,” Bill told her. “I’m used to worse. Yes, it’s a bit…well, to be honest, it’s a bit predictable, but I’m not bothered at all.”

“Hey, what’d I miss?” asked Theo. He was holding a plate piled high with biscuit, which he brought over to the coffee table. “Move over, Dee, I want to sit down.”

“You can sit on my feet,” Dinah said. 

“I don’t want to. Move ‘em.”

“Fine.” Dinah drew up her feet to let Theo sit down. “You’re such a baby, Theo.”

“I prefer to think of it as being finicky about my creature comforts,” Theo said, and held up a biscuit. “Here, open up.” He zoomed the biscuit towards her mouth and held it there while she took a bite (while rolling her eyes). “See? Making accommodations for me has its benefits.”

“I guess you’ve made enough for me,” Dinah conceded, and took the biscuit herself. “Bill,” she said once she’d finished it, “you excited to go back to England?”

“Oh, yeah, we never gave you the trip details!” Theo broke in before Bill could answer. “Dee, we need to tell you our itinerary.” From Dinah’s raised eyebrow, it was clear that she knew exactly how transparent he was, but was electing to keep her mouth shut. In her position, Bill would have done the same – more so, in fact, since he was the one that Theo had held on to and cried on in sporadic bursts for the first two months after Vince’s death. 

“We’re going to Oxford to see my family,” Bill said. They’d been pestering him for months, ever since that one buggering e-mail where he’d had the bad luck to mention that there was someone in his life now who wasn’t spitting pus up on his scrubs. Cousin Primrose couldn’t keep a secret and he should have remembered that. “I’ve got quite a lot of family.”

“No, I know that,” she said. “It’s why you’re doing all this Christmas stuff early, right?” He nodded. “Okay, yeah, so you’re going to see your family. They must be excited to have a first-timer in England, too.”

“I’ve already been,” Theo answered before Bill could. “Saw the London Eye and all that stuff already. I want to see the real England now.”

“Well,” Bill said, “you’ve been to London, not my hometown. We’re not exactly Manchester, Theo. I warned you that you might be disappointed.” Theo’s idea of what constituted ‘the real England’ seemed to be either a gritty Northern city or the proverbial quaint hamlet. While Bill had to admit that yes, he did come from one of those, England’s heterogeneity seemed to have escaped Theo’s mind otherwise. 

“Yeah, I _remember_ , Billy.” Theo patted the space next to him. “Come over here and sit down. I hate it when you stand over there and give me that look.”

“Only when you deserve it, dear,” Bill said as pithily as he could. He sat down by Theo, murmuring an apology to Dinah for further inconveniencing her with regards to leg room, and immediately felt Theo’s arm slide around his waist. “Clingy, are we?”

“We’re going to be there for the twelve days of Christmas,” Theo said, “and I have no idea how your family responds to PDA.” He turned to look at Dinah. “Unless you want us to come back for New Year’s. Seriously, Dee, we can.”

Dinah shook her head and sat up, folding her legs under herself and reaching over to grab Theo’s free hand. “Theo, you’ve done enough for me,” she said. “I already don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done so far.”

“No need to thank me,” Theo said. He withdrew his arm from around Bill’s waist and sandwiched her hand in both of his. “Your husband died. Anyone with any human compassion at all would’ve done the same stuff I did.”

“You’d be surprised.” She ate another biscuit, this one an iced gingerbread man. Bill was particularly proud of those; for once, the dough had come out an acceptable texture, and the finished biscuits that he’d sampled reflected that.

“Good?” Theo asked. “Nah, stupid question. I know they’re good.”

Bill squeezed his waist. “Thank you.”

“They’re really good,” Dinah said. “Bill, you’re talented.” She looked up at the clock over the mantelpiece, though Bill suspected that it was more of a show gesture than a genuine need to know the time. “Sorry, but I’m really not comfortable with Noah feeding my kids dinner. I actually do have to go now.”

Theo frowned, but he didn’t ask her to stay. If he had begged straight out, Dinah would have caved in an instant, and Bill appreciated Theo’s fortitude. “You should take some cookies,” he said. “The boys’ll love them.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Dinah said. “You mind if I take this plate? You guys have more in the kitchen, right?”

“That plate is fine,” Bill replied. “I have enough biscuits in the kitchen to feed my entire family, all God-knows-how-many members of it.” Grandpa Took, who had lived well into his nineties and had earned the nickname of ‘the Old Took’ near the end of his life, had fathered twelve children and quite a few of them had reproduced. And that was just one side of his family. On the whole, he suspected that he had acquired some new cousins in the years that he’d been away from Oxford, bringing the total up to far too many birthdays to remember. 

“I think Phil and Caleb could finish your baking if you gave them a couple of hours,” Theo said. “Just look at Phil. That kid’s growing a huge appetite lately.”

“Puberty,” Dinah said with a one-shouldered shrug, “that’s all I can say. Phil will be hitting it soon, at least. Caleb has some time, I think.”

“He’s growing, though,” Theo argued. “I think he gets taller every time I see him. You better prepare to fill the fridge every few days if they’re anything like me, Dee.”

“Okay, okay. Brother knows best,” said Dinah, and winked at Bill. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the potential inside jokes that constituted the reason why, and decided it would be better not to ask. “I’ll see you later, then?” she asked, pushing herself off the couch with both hands and standing up in one move.

“Yeah, call me later,” Theo said. 

“Love you.” Dinah kissed him on the cheek, gave him a hug when he stood up, and picked up the plate of biscuits. “I’ll see you later.” She left the living room, and Bill heard the front door close, followed shortly by the sound of her car starting. 

Theo abruptly sat back down. “She doesn’t live here anymore,” he said. 

“She was never supposed to,” Bill told him, “and I think that’s a book title.”

“No, I mean…it’s…she’s been here for five months.” Theo flopped over and rested his chin on the armrest that Dinah had recently vacated. “I kind of got used to her. Didn’t you?”

“I understand what you mean.” Bill scooted over and put his head on Theo’s shoulder, letting Theo’s hair fall over his face. It smelled like shampoo, and he breathed in deeply to take in as much of Theo’s everyday scent as he could. “You miss her already?”

“Yeah.” Theo sounded so incredibly downhearted that it made Bill want to wrap him up in a blanket and put him in front of a fire, maybe with a rerun of some terrible sitcom playing in the background. “She’s my sister, Bill. I don’t…am I being a big fuckin’ crybaby about this?”

“No,” Bill said, and patted Theo’s stomach. Theo uncurled a little, and Bill came in closer for a more thorough hug. “No, you’re not. You’ve both had a terrible experience that no one should have to live through at your ages. It’s not surprising you don’t want to let go of her.”

“Mm-hm.” Theo put both arms around Bill and, suddenly, their embrace resembled nothing more than two octopodes clinging to each other. “You always know what to say, Bill.”

“Well, I don’t try,” he said, and then something popped into his mind. Oh. Of _course_ he knew how to cheer Theo up, and he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. Yanking himself away from Theo’s limbs, he stood up and held up a hand when Theo’s face fell. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back. There’s something I want to give you.”

“Don’t be too long,” Theo said. He was still wearing an expression that would have been appropriate for him either being a kicked puppy or having witnessed his puppy being kicked. Bill wasn’t sure which was sadder, quite frankly. 

“I won’t,” he said, and left the room to hurry up the stairs, which creaked under his sockfeet, as quickly as he could. The gift was buried in the back of his closet under a stack of spare scrubs, which he knew from experience and a very educated guess that Theo wouldn’t touch under pain of death. The prospect of touching other people’s germs tended to make people stay far away. 

The [jumper](http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/henry-viii) that he now dragged from between a wrinkled yellow top that looked terrible on him and a pair of pink sweats he’d gotten as a joke gift was easily the most ornate piece of knitting he’d ever completed. The idea had come to him about a month into Dinah’s stay. Acquiring the yarn had been the easy part – actually knitting the thing had taken dozens of nights of setting a vibrating alarm so that he could knit in the wee hours when Theo was dozing, and on a few occasions, bringing the jumper to work and getting himself into even more trouble with Gilly than he already was. In fact, he’d only finished it two days ago, too late to give it to Theo on his actual birthday (which Theo had staunchly insisted on _not_ celebrating). For once, the time spent helping Dinah pack had pushed the gift to the back of his mind

Bill knew it was the most inane request in the world and that he ought to be ashamed of himself, but he briefly brought the jumper to his chest, looked up at the ceiling, and prayed that Theo would love it anyway. _Buck up_ , he scolded himself, _and show a bit of that stiff upper lip your country’s so famous for!_

With a sigh, he folded the jumper under one arm and went back down the stairs. “Theo?” he said as he peered around the edge of the living-room entranceway. “I’ve got a present for you.”

“Shit, and it’s not even my birthday!” Theo said, with an exaggerated clasp of his hands. 

“No, but it was your birthday a month ago.” Theo was just lucky that he was gorgeous and that Bill wasn’t prone to violence. That kind of horrid, unintentional pun would have earned him a slap from anyone else. “Close your eyes.”

“They’re closed.”

“Good.” Bill squinted at Theo to make sure he was telling the truth, walked in, and put the jumper in his lap. Theo’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, the expression of a little boy about to dig in to the bounty under the Christmas tree. Bill even thought he could see Theo’s hands trembling to rip open a package. “All right, you can open them now.”

Theo’s eyes opened; Bill took the opportunity, for the millionth time, to marvel at how thick and black his eyelashes were. “Wow,” he said, unfolded the jumper, and held it up. “Bill, it’s beautiful. Where’d you get it?”

“I beg your _pardon_ ,” Bill snapped, only half-jokingly, as he brought himself up to his full height. “You know perfectly well that I knit.” Was Theo taking the piss, or was he serious? He’d seen Bill’s collection of jumpers and he had to know that the last time he’d _bought_ a jumper (perish the thought!) was sometime in the late ‘90s. 

“Wait, are you telling me you made this?” Theo brought the jumper closer to his face, almost touching the tip of his long nose. “You knitted this?”

“Yes, you berk. I’ve been trying to tell you that this entire conversation.”

The jumper dropped into his lap, and Theo’s mouth dropped open. “How…” His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. “How long did this take you, Bill?”

“What, do you mean the day I started?” Bill frowned and looked up toward his forehead, an old habit of his when something was lost in the mists. Damn job had his memory as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. “Four months ago, more or less,” he said. “It could be a bit longer. Dinah and the boys were already staying here.”

“Did Dee know about this?” Theo still looked like he was about to faint, so Bill took his wrist and checked his radial pulse. He didn’t seem to notice, but his pulse was strong, so it was probably just his facial expression. 

“No,” Bill said. “I had to keep it from her, too.” Which was actually far easier than keeping it from Theo, given that neither Dinah nor her sons had stayed in their bedroom after the first few days. Theo’s chatty, occasionally-amorous bedroom habits proved far more of a roadblock. 

“You knitted this sweater in four months and you didn’t tell my sister,” Theo said softly, “and you didn’t tell me, and no one found out.”

“Well…Gilly did,” Bill admitted, “but that was only because I knitted at work.” Theo kept staring. “Are you about to have an episode of heart failure, Theo? I’d better call the ambul - _agh!_ ”

Theo wrapped his arms around him and yanked him down into his lap, the jumper crushed between them. Bill’s ear was pressed against Theo’s chin, and the bristles of his beard were so stiff that they were almost painful. Also, he was pretty sure that Theo had turned him in just the right direction to pull a muscle. “You made me _that_ ,” Theo said. “It’s fuckin’ beautiful, Bill. _You made a sweater_. And it’s for _me_.”

“Yes,” Bilbo said into his neck. “Consider that your birthday, Hanukkah, and Christmas present in one.” 

“Obviously.” Theo patted Bill’s back way too hard. “You know what, I thought you really didn’t have much of a life outside being a nurse and shit. And reading. You know what?”

“You’d better not follow that up with another insult.” Bill pushed away a bit to get some air into his lungs. Theo hugged like the Jaws of Life. 

“I’ve never been so wrong in all my life,” Theo said, and brought Bill into another hug. Bill relaxed into it this time, because six months with Theo had taught him many things, not least that trying to leave a hug before it was finished was not a good idea. 

“Good,” he said. “I’m very glad you like it.” If Theo hadn’t, Bill might have had his head up on a pike as a warning for the next ingrate who didn’t appreciate homemade knitting. He hadn’t given himself blisters for – _no_ , he reminded himself, feeling his feathers start to ruffle, _it’s a bleeding hypothetical._

“It’s the best present ever.” Theo released him, thank God, and pulled him into a far more standard side cuddle instead. “You know what? It even makes me feel okay about being forty-two.”

“It _is_ the secret to life, the universe, and everything,” Bill joked. 

“I get it, Arthur Dent,” Theo said. He kissed Bill’s cheek, then moved to his lips for a much more ardent kiss. Bill allowed himself to be drawn into what was, all past sessions considered, one of the more pleasant kisses he’d shared with Theo. His cock was stirring in his trousers and, in response to the very pleasant sensation he got when he rubbed against Theo’s leg, he grabbed Theo’s hair and yanked on it to pull him closer. 

Theo broke away some time later, Bill wasn’t quite sure of how long, to breathe. “You want to fuck in front of the fire?” he asked between pants. 

“We don’t have a fire.”

“Could make one.”

“All right,” Bill said, “as long as you do it. I don’t want to get up.” 

“Okay.” Theo ambushed him with another kiss, then got up, an erection noticeable in the front of his trousers. Bill stole a look at the window and satisfied himself that it was dark enough outside that, should they get up to naked shenanigans, no one would catch a glimpse of anything scarring. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to take that risk. 

“Theo,” he said, “close the curtains while you’re at it?”

“Sure.” Theo walked over and closed the curtains with one strong yank of his arms, then came back. “You want me to get naked first, or make the fire first? I’m good with either.”

“Fire. Wasn’t it you who broached the subject of not wanting me to burn my penis off when I cooked?” And brought it up approximately a third of the time Bill cooked thereafter, to the point that it had passed quirky and just became eye-rolling. 

“I prefer ‘grundle’ or ‘junk,’ Theo said with a smile. “It’s nice you want me to protect mine, though. Okay, fire it is.” He got on his knees in front of the fireplace and opened the damper, then grabbed the matches off the mantelpiece, along with the stack of newspaper that Bill knew he kept there for the purpose of warming the flue. “This’ll be a few minutes. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Consider me warned,” Bill said, and rested his chin on his hand, watching through half-closed eyes while Theo warmed the fireplace and built up the fire on the ashes of the last one. He really did look good from the back. It wasn’t just his arse, either; he had a very strong back, and the planes of his muscles could be seen right through his shirt. Bill licked his lips and put a hand down his trousers to adjust himself. 

“No whackin’ off,” Theo shot over his shoulder. 

Bill took his hand away. “How on _earth_ did you even see that?” he asked. “Have you got eyes in the back of your head?” 

“Educated guess, and you just confirmed it, babe,” Theo answered. “You know I love watching you touch yourself.” His voice went a notch deeper. “When you tease yourself, it’s really hot. I just don’t want you to come before I can see it.”

Bill gulped. “It would be much hotter to hear you say that if you didn’t call me ‘babe,’” he said, after a minute or so of unsticking his vocal cords. That voice got him every single time, and to very dramatic effect, too. Theo had used it on him once while he was mopping, and the floor had ended up even dirtier when all was said and done. 

“What am I supposed to call you, then?” Theo said. “When I say ‘Billy,’ it just gets your goat.” He let out a sudden chuckle. “Oh, fuck, I didn’t even mean to make that pun.”

“Yes, yes, you’re firing on all cylinders today, but I’d prefer you fired on mine,” Bill said. “You mentioned sex in front of the fire. I see a fire, so where’s the sex?”

Theo shook his head. “Can’t believe you,” he said as he stripped his shirt off over his head. “You take all the romance out of everything.” He kicked off his trousers and pants, then retrieved the jumper from its position on the couch and put it on over his undershirt. “Sexy enough for you?”

Strangely enough, it was. Bill’s cock swelled beyond the bounds of any kind of comfort in his trousers at the sight of it, and he got up to take them off. “You’re a fine jumper model,” he said, and took off his jacket and thermal shirt when he was finished with the trousers. “Just as long as we don’t get anything on it.”

“That’s what condoms are for.” Theo looked him up and down extremely lasciviously. The fire was a good backdrop for that kind of expression. If not for the cat standing next to Theo with a disgusted look on his face, this could have been the cover of a pornographic novel. 

Bill pointed at Rug. “He looks like he’s scolding you for being nude,” he said. “You’ve still got condoms in the junk drawer, right?”

Theo looked down. “Hi, fuzzball. Didn’t hear you come in,” he said. “Now leave us alone.” Rug, of course, ignored him. “Shit, I better go put some catnip in his food. I’ll go get the condoms while I’m there. If you want to, I don’t know, spread yourself out or something, I’m down with that.” He wiggled an eyebrow and winked. 

Bill watched Theo’s bare arse as long as it was in view, then took off his Y-fronts and tried his best to comply with Theo’s requet on the couch. He was probably going to embarrass himself with any attempt at a truly lascivious pose, so in lieu of trying to imitate Rose from _Titanic_ (although the thought did cross his mind, if he were to be honest with himself), he lay on his belly and propped his chin up on his hands, legs spread. Rug took off, most likely as disgusted at the sight as Bill was when he caught Rug licking certain parts. 

Theo returned in a few minutes, a strip of condoms dangling from one hand and a tube of lube in the other. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he said immediately upon seeing Bill. It was impossible to see clearly at that distance and in the dim light, but Bill fancied he could see Theo’s pupils dilate. “I can see your balls.”

“Yes, they’re unavoidable.” Bill heaved himself into a sit and drew his knees as far apart and up as he could. “Is this a better view?” The skin on his bollocks immediately crinkled, although the air in the room wasn’t terribly cold - _dartos muscle_ , the thought crossed his mind automatically, and he ignored it as usual. 

Theo growled and jumped onto the couch in lieu of an immediate answer, and shoved his face into Bill’s crotch. “Way better,” he said, once his face was close enough to Bill’s sac that Bill could feel the heat of his breath. “I want to lick ‘em.”

Bill whimpered and nodded vigorously. “Yes,” he said. His cock was so hard that he could see the head sticking nearly straight up. Theo grinned at him and growled again, and then there was a hot tongue wiggling as far between his bollocks as it could go without hurting him. Bill tipped his head back and let out a moan, and grabbed Theo’s hair again to make him stay there until the end of time. 

Theo kept alternately licking and sucking on his bollocks, each time just hard enough to skirt the edge of pain, but not quite there. Bill put three fingers in his mouth and bit down to stifle his more humiliating whines, especially those he made when Theo’s nose bumped into the base of his cock. Theo’s grunts and gasps made it clear that he was enjoying himself, too, even if Bill couldn’t see past the top of his head to confirm. 

“H-how’d you learn to do this?” he haltingly asked after a particularly long, laving suck that brought him _oh_ , so close to coming. “Have you - _fuck_ …” Theo rubbed his nose between the base of Bill’s prick and the top of his balls. “…done this to other people?”

“Oh, yeah.” Theo laid a loud, wet kiss on the area. “Maybe ten years ago, last time I was in London. There was this guy, little younger than me, and we _hated_ each other. But God, he was good in bed.”

“Has he got a name?” 

“Drake Ignatius Smaug.” Theo pronounced the words as if they were scientific name of some huge venomous insect, something to be both revered and reviled. “Went by Ignatius, last I heard of him. What a fucking asshole.” He brought two fingers back and stroked Bill’s hole with his fingertips, which made a very pleasant distraction from what he was saying. “Pretentious as hell. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Good in bed,” Bill breathlessly reminded him. 

“That’s us academics for you.” Theo looked up at him with those beautiful, lustful eyes. His lips were wet with saliva and a bit swollen. “Do you want me to blow you?”

It was definitely a tempting offer, but Bill had something else in mind, now that he’d had his brain whetted with tales of one of Theo’s sexploits. “I want to fuck you,” he said, “and hear about this Smaug while I’m in you.” He rather regretted the loss of Theo’s tongue, but his arse was sure to be better. 

“Sounds like a deal.” Theo licked his lips. “Okay if I kiss you first?”

“You don’t have to ask,” Bill said. 

“Yeah, only you saw where my mouth’s been.”

Oh. Yes, that was definitely a consideration. Whatever would his coworkers say if they knew about his medical negligence (apart from ‘you go, Bill’)? “I showered this morning,” he said after a few seconds of weighing the pros and cons in his head. The dirtiness of what Theo wanted to do won out, of course, even though it had started out as a con. “Kiss away.”

Theo put his arms around him and kissed him deeply enough to make Bill’s head spin with pleasure. “Fuck me,” he said, “and do it _hard_.”

Bill groaned. “Your wish is my command,” he said. “Do you want fingers?” Theo held up two. “Mmm, so three of mine.” He cast around and picked up the lube and condoms from the floor, where they looked to have fallen during Theo’s couch dive, then squirted a good amount of lube onto his fingers and leaned forward to seal his mouth against Theo’s. 

Theo purred satisfyingly into the kiss, a noise that turned into an even more satisfying cry when Bill reached between his legs and rubbed his lubed forefinger in a circle around the edge of Theo’s hole. Bill moaned in response and pressed his cock against Theo’s strong, hard thigh, which tensed against him every time he thrust his hips. He slid his finger in all the way and began to rub it in a circle against the hot walls, good and slow. 

“ _Bill!_ ” Theo shouted, loud enough to make his ears ring. Bill stilled his finger – was that a good shout or a bad one? “No, you bastard, don’t stop, for fuck’s sake.” All right, then, there was his answer. Bill smiled into the kiss he pressed to Theo’s neck and put in a second finger, this time crooking the both of them upwards and rubbing them back and forth. Theo’s body jerked, and he squeezed hard around Bill’s fingers. 

“That’s _lovely_ ,” Bill said. “Oh, God, Theo.” If his voice cracked any harder, it would sound downright pubescent. He wiggled his fingers and gloried in the noises that Theo made, soft moans and grunts that grew louder and more frenzied the more he moved his fingers. 

Theo grabbed his forearm and squeezed it hard, and Bill obligingly stopped the movement of his hand. “Fuck me now,” he said. “That’s an order!” His deep voice was shaky with desperation, and his fingers dug into Bill’s forearm. 

“D-don’t you want three fingers?” Now he was tripping over his words again, fantastic. At least Theo had never teased him about the things he said and did when he was aroused, because there was no way he would be able to stop. 

Theo shook his head so vigorously that a few coarse strands of his hair hit Bill in the face. He took a fast breath in, and fancied that they smelled like Theo’s hormones. “No. I want to be fuckin’ tight around you. You can stretch me with your cock.”

The cock in question jumped in anticipation. Bill wrapped his fist around the base, squeezing so he wouldn’t embarrass himself before he could get a condom on. “Just a minute,” he said, and tore open a condom wrapper as fast as he could with his fingers trembling. Theo could make the dirtiest, coarsest things sound like invocations of love, and the things he could do with his mouth…he needed to return the favor. “Lie still and I’ll put your condom on,” he said. 

Theo let out a shuddering breath and obeyed. It was too bad the jumper hid the inevitable goosebumps on his chest, and all but the barest suggestion of his hard, pointed brown nipples. Bill allowed himself the distraction of kissing one over the jumper and worrying his lips against the wool while Theo whined, then went back to his original task of opening up a condom and sliding it down the length of Theo’s erection with his mouth. 

Now Theo’s hands were in Bill’s hair, which he considered turnabout, or perhaps it was fair play, or whatever phrase meant that he didn’t mind that Theo’s massive upper body strength had nearly yanked the curls out of his head on the first tug. He smiled around the hot thickness of Theo’s cock and used his tongue to stroke the shaft past the descending condom edge. The pull he got in response, although mitigated by Theo’s near-scream, almost certainly drew blood. 

He gave one last swallow when his lips reached the base of Theo’s cock and then pulled back, wiping his mouth. “Ready?” he asked. 

Theo scowled and spread his legs as wide as he could. Even his scowl couldn’t hide the look of want underneath. “What’d I say, Bill?”

Bill shook his head and tsked. “You said to fuck you, but you needn’t be rude about it!” He put on a condom and took some lube anyway, then stroked it up and down the length of his cock. Neertheless, to punish Theo for his rudeness, he took his sweet time about it. He let his palm rub over his still-hard bollocks and closed his eyes with a pleasured squeak. 

“ _Bill!_ ” 

“Oh, all right.” Bill opened his eyes and watched Theo wiggle in place for a few seconds. His hole was still open from Bill’s fingers, and seeing that made the flush on Bill’s body go deeper and hotter. “Yes, I’ll fuck you,” he said, and put a condom on much more quickly than he’held Theo’s thighs apart as much as he could with his palms while he slid inside him all the way with a long, smooth, unbearably wonderful stroke. 

He was even hotter than he’d been around Bill’s fingers – such soft flesh, softer than any part of such a tough person had any right to be, slickness palpable even through the condom. Bill let his head fall forward and rested his forehead on Theo’s collarbone, where he could hear his heavy breaths rumbling. “Bill,” Theo said, “Bill, this…this…” The words petered off in a soft noise, and his cock moved between their bellies. 

“Tell me…” Bill thrust his hips slowly backwards and then forwards again. “Tell me about this Smaug.”

“Ten years ago. I said so.” Theo clutched him close, hands around Bill’s shoulders and his legs wrapped around his hips. The dense hair on his calves scratched at Bill’s back and made him shiver. What was it about a man with body hair that turned him on so much? “I was, _nngh_ , in London for a history contest. Before I g-got tenure -!” He gasped loudly. Bill pulled back to watch his mouth open and his eyes squeeze shut. “That feels so good.”

He was so warm, and his hole flexed around Bill’s prick with every movement. It felt indescribable for him, too. “What was he like?” Bill asked, and then licked Theo’s collarbone. These short sentences were about all he could do right now. “Sss-sexy?” He brought a hand between them and stroked Theo’s cock. 

“ _Mouthy_ ,” Theo bit out. “Fuck! Like you. Fuckin’ asshole. We disagreed on _don’t stop_!” he interrupted himself. “Bill, quit pullin’ out.” He grabbed Bill’s arse and pulled him right back in, and Bill couldn’t help a cry as his eyes rolled up in his head. Right, then, fuck his current plan. Rough and hard it was. 

“You f-fought,” he panted, and started to thrust again, “during sex, I assume?”

“About everything. And then we got drunk.” Theo grunted out that last word and pressed his cock up against the swell of Bill’s belly. Bill arched his torso away a little and brought his hand back to help. “Nnn _god_! He asked me to. To marry him!” His fist squeezed tighter around his cock and his knuckles bumped into Bill’s own. “Fuckin’ ginger bastard.”

Oh, he had a soft spot for redheads, when it wasn’t taken up by a certain black-haired bastard. Bill felt close to bursting inside Theo. “But you didn’t,” he said, punctuating each word with a forward movement of his hips and a clench of his arse. “You’re with me.”

“Yeah.” Theo tightened the grip of his hands around his back and clung hard, then rubbed his prick on Bill’s belly again. “Love you, Bill.” His chest hitched and shuddered with a deeply-drawn breath, which made Bill pull back – not without difficulty – and look at him again. His face was beginning to screw up. “Gonna come!”

“Then come.” Bill pushed himself up for a better angle, much as it hurt his arms to do it. There was little better in the world than Theo’s orgasm face. 

“Oh _god_!” Sure enough, Theo’s expression completely came apart at the seams as he lost control. His entire body clenched up against Bill’s and he thrust his chin up so hard, jaw clenched, that the tendons in his neck instantly became visible. “Bill,” he moaned, and his embrace was suddenly as tight as a stranglehold. 

A few moments of watching that beautiful sight play out were all that it took to bring Bill off, too. The force of the orgasm slammed his eyes shut and pitched him forward into Theo’s arms, and a wave of goosebumps rose and fell over his entire body. He kissed the center of Theo’s chest and settled in, still buried deep inside him. 

Theo began to hum something low a few minutes later, and the vibrations traveled to Bill’s chest to warm him from the inside out. “That was awesome, Bill,” he said, and then his stomach growled. “Ah, shit, I’m starving.”

Bill smiled. “Does that mean I should pull out and order something?”

“Yeah.” Theo kissed his temple. “Chinese food? I could eat like ten pints of everything.”

Bill braced his hands on the couch to either side of Theo and pulled out of him as slowly and gently as he could. It still provoked a brief whine from Theo, and he shivered when his prick came into contact with the comparatively cold air. “Fried rice?” He peeled the condom off his cock and held it between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Like I said, everything.” Theo put out his hand. “Gimme that. I’ll get rid of it with mine.” He raised a bushy eyebrow. “Don’t give me that look, Bill, I’ve already had it in me.”

“I suppose it’s a fair price to keep you from ruining your new jumper,” Bill sighed, and got up, inspecting the jumper from his new angle. It was a bit crumpled, to be sure, but he couldn’t see any suspicious stains on it. He sighed with relief. Cleaning it would have been a job and a half, equal to the first blocking it had gotten. “Right, I’ve got to use the loo, and then I’ll call the Happy Dumpling.”

“I’ll go pee upstairs,” Theo said. “And then I’ll be waiting with bells on. Is that right? Bells on?”

“Something along those lines. If you want to eat in front of the telly, it’s all right with me.”

“Huh.” Theo smiled. “Sounds good. I think it’s supposed to snow, anyway. Perfect night for it.”

“Perfect indeed,” Bill said. He leaned down and kissed Theo briefly, shivering when the tip of Theo’s tongue flicked at his lips. “Oh, behave, Theo!”

Theo smiled. “Couldn’t resist.” He kissed Bill with his mouth closed this time, and then patted him on the arse. “Okay, go pee.”

Bill smiled and went to the downstairs loo to do just that. When he was finished washing his hands, he took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. As he might have expected, his hair was a mess, and his cheeks were still bright red from exertion. Had he not known that the brightness of his eyes was from sex and not a fever, he would have recommended that he take himself to hospital forthwith. 

Theo was back on the couch, flushed in much the same way, when Bill got back to the living room. “Brought your phone,” he said, holding it up. “Get over here and cuddle me.”

“Thanks, and sure.” Bill sat down and slid into the curve of Theo’s waiting arm. He was so warm. “What sort of food do you want? I did ask about fried rice, right?”

“Hmm.” Theo rested his cheek on the top of Bill’s head. His hair fell between them, smelling of sweat and sex hormones. “I want some beef fried rice, and egg rolls. But not the ones with just vegetables in them, okay? I want some chicken in them. And…potstickers, maybe? Will you share potstickers with me, or will I end up eating ‘em all myself?”

“If they’re shrimp potstickers, yes,” Bill said. Six months with him and Theo’s palate was still approximately as varied as the color range on a black-and-white printer. “Tofu with broccoli and crab rangoon for me, and I’m stealing some of your food.”

Theo handed the phone over. “Okay. Make the order.”

They were, Bilbo reflected as he punched a button, probably not alone in having the local Chinese restaurant on speed-dial, but that didn’t make him feel like any less of an unhealthy bastard as he placed the order for what even the Coneheads would probably call “mass quantities of food.” Ah, well, if he ended up bloated for his last pre-holiday shift at work, he could justify it with the fact that Jewish people usually had Chinese food on Christmas, but he and Theo were going to be out of town on that day. 

“Right,” he said after hanging up, and put the phone down on the end table. “The food should be here in about half an hour. Want to watch something until then?”

“Yeah.” With a grunt, Theo shifted them over in the direction of the TV, which was resting on a crude wooden table – courtesy of one of Theo’s friends at the Village – just off to the side of the fireplace. “I put the remote between the cushions last time I used it, right?”

“I think so,” Bill said. “Just put it on the end table like a normal person, Theo.” He twirled a strand of Theo’s hair between two fingers. 

“But then I’d be a normal person and you wouldn’t love me. Aha!” Theo dug the remote out from between the couch cushions and turned the television on, then settled back against Bill and began to page through the DVR selections at half-light speed. “Oh, hey, DVR got American Dad. You okay with that?”

“Could be worse,” Bill said. Theo’s passion for TBS was rivaled only for his passions for several other blush-worthy things. He wiggled more securely against Theo and settled into him as the theme song began. 

About an episode and a half later, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Theo said. “My wallet’s closer.” He stood up, and Bill was very sharply reminded that he’d taken everything off except his jumper. “Don’t bother tellin’ me you’re gonna pay me back. You don’t need to.”

“Pay me back by putting some trousers on, for God’s sake,” Bill said. “You’ll traumatize the delivery person.”

“Huh? Oh, fuck, thanks.” Theo picked his discarded boxers off the floor and slid them up over his hips, then dug in his trouser pockets for his wallet. “Be right back. They’ve gotta be getting impatient out there.”

Bill’s stomach rumbled painfully, and he pressed his fist under his breastbone to quiet it. Goodness gracious, it looked like for maybe the first time ever, he’d forgotten to eat. Moving Dinah’s things had taken up most of the lunch hour. “Get some forks while you’re up?” he said as Theo moved towards the front door. Chopsticks would just make him spill hot food down his naked front. 

“Yeah, sure,” Theo said, and yanked the door open. “Hey. Are you the delivery person?”

“Yeah, and I think I’m dreaming,” said a voice that sounded like it belonged to…a middle-aged woman, maybe? Oh, damnation, Theo was standing in front of someone’s mum, one thin, _perforated_ layer of fabric away from an indecent exposure citation. Fuck resting, it looked like Bill had to do some damage control. 

He heaved himself off the couch with great difficulty, struggled into the yoga trousers that Theo had inherited from Dinah when she stopped taking yoga, and pulled on his shirt while hopping to the door. “Sorry if he’s traumatized you,” he said as he pulled the fabric down over his head. His hair was probably irreparably rumpled by now. 

“No way is that traumatic,” said the delivery woman. She was East Asian, maybe about forty, with wavy hair pulled back and a red baseball cap that had the words ‘Happy Dumpling’ embroidered on it. “My name’s Carrie, and your husband is hot.”

“Hi, Carrie,” said Theo. “We’re Bill and Theo, and we’re re-enacting Hungry Hungry Hippos. We’re almost to the secret cannibalism level. You can’t show your kids that one.”

“My kids aren’t even old enough to get on the Internet without me,” said Carrie with a laugh. “Okay, here’s what you owe.” She handed Theo a receipt, and handed Bill two wonderful-smelling paper bags with grease showing through. They were heavy enough that he had to heft them in his arms. 

Theo looked at the receipt and breathed in sharply through his teeth. “Yikes.”

“Went a little overboard?” Carrie said, sympathy in her voice. 

“More like I’m not sure if I got enough food to feed this guy.” Theo inclined his head towards Bill. “He runs around a hospital all day and then he eats all night.” He snorted and took some money out of his wallet. “All I got is a hundred. Keep the change?”

“Thanks a lot.” Carrie looked at the money, whistled, and put it in her pocket. “Sure I can’t give you my number? You’re totally my type. Tall, dark, and handsome, and loaded.”

“Taken, sorry,” Theo said. “But if I liked women, I’d say yes. Interested in women and single, I mean. You seem nice.”

“I’m just kidding ya,” Carrie said. “I have a husband. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“You, too,” said Theo, and closed the door behind her. 

“Really, a hundred?” Bill asked as he lugged the bags of food to the couch. The television was still paused in the middle of an episode, and Stan Smith’s face was caught mid-expression. “She’s going to think you’re in the Mafia.”

“Those delivery people are paid shit,” Theo said. “Be right back.” He ducked into the kitchen, and Bill heard the clatter of silverware before he reappeared with two forks sticking out of his fist. “Forrest got a job as a delivery kid in high school. It paid shit back then, too. No one ever tipped him, either.”

Bill tore open a carton and breathed in the heavenly scent of crab rangoon. “You know damn well you had twenties, though,” he pointed out. “What if she figured that out?” He picked up a crab dumpling with a fork and bit into it. “Mmm!”

“How long has it been since we had Chinese food?” Theo said as he picked up another carton and expertly poked a pair of chopsticks inside. “Few months?” he continued through a mouth so full that noodles were dripping out from between his lips (Bill had caved and, as Theo mouthed a plea at him, added lo mein to their order). Ugh, the things he put up with for love, and arse. 

“About that,” Bill said. He took another bite of crab rangoon. “You mean you’ve had less opportunity to patronize Chinese restaurants when I cook things that won’t destroy your liver.”

Theo pointed a chopstick at him. “No medical speak.” He crossed his legs and shifted closer to the back of the couch, then grabbed the remote. “Okay if I put the TV back on?”

“Suit yourself,” Bill said. 

“Thanks, Billy.” Theo gave him a one-armed hug, then turned the show back on and began to eat in earnest. 

It made for a companionable meal, them stealing bits of food from each other’s cartons and watching Roger the Alien make trouble for the Smith family. Bill could have very well fallen asleep then and there, if it weren’t for Rug coming in and beginning to bat at the lower branches of the Christmas tree. “Hey!” Bill shouted, putting his shrimp dumpling down on top of the nearest carton. “He’s going to get sick from that, Theo.”

“Rug, move your furry ass.” Theo got up and pulled the cat away from the tree, earning himself a scratch and an angry meow in the process. “Little bastard,” he grumbled as he put Rug down on the couch between them. “Gotta keep him distracted.” He dug into the carton of lo mein and picked up a piece of beef, which he put down on the couch for Rug. 

“Theo,” Bill said, “you remember what happened last time you fed him people food.” Rug didn’t seem to mind the sweet-spicy taste of the sauce, since he was gobbling the beef up in record time. _Bill_ minded, though, since it was likely his face that Rug was going to sleep on later. “Flatulence? Ringing a bell?” 

Rug looked up at him as if to say that he was so onto him, spread his front paws across Bill’s thigh, and farted. Theo gave a yelp of laughter. “He knows what you’re talking about, Bill,” he said, and pointed a chopstick at Rug. “Bad boy, Rug. You wanna play Dueling Banjos?”

“What on Earth is that?” Bill asked. Was it possible that Theo’s supply of idiosyncratic idioms hadn’t yet exhausted itself? 

“Gimme a second,” Theo said, and after a moment of staring Rug down, echoed his fart with a grimace. 

“Theo!” Bill made a face and waved at the air in front of him. “You’re a child!”

“What?” Theo said. “Rug sharted it.”

“You mean he start – oh, no, you didn’t.” Bill sighed. “Just don’t finish it, or I’ll be forced to shove a cork where no cork should be.” He didn’t want to have to deal with a Dutch oven tonight, and if Theo’s mood was this silly, it was likely that his head would be shoved inside. 

Theo sighed and settled back against the couch. “Bill,” he said, “do you think they’ll be all right without us?”

Bill turned to him. “Who? Your family?”

“Yeah. Phil and Caleb…you saw them. They’ve lost their spark.” Theo stretched his legs out in front of him. “It’s scary.”

“I seem to remember them moping around here until Halloween,” Bill said. Theo was right; his nephews weren’t their usual selves, understandable as it was. The boys' moodiness had gotten to the point that their mother and uncle had relaxed their grounding for Halloween, and seeing Theo in a Chewbacca costume (otherwise known as a pair of furry brown shorts and his own plentiful body hair) had finally put smiles on their faces. 

“Sounds right.” Theo ran his fingers through Bill’s hair, and he could smell the grease on his hand. He was going to have to wash his hair later, even though he’d already showered that day. “I’m scared they’ll regress while we’re gone and turn into hermits.”

“Dinah won’t let that happen,” Bill told him. “She certainly isn’t about to regress, and they’ve gotten better since Halloween, haven’t they? I caught them trying to cook a soufflé with their leftover candy a few weeks ago.”

Theo shook his head with a slow smile. “I’m surprised they still had leftover candy,” he said. “Anyway, if you really think they’re better, I guess all I have to worry about is Danny chopping down your Christmas tree while he’s feeding Rug.”

“Why would he do that?” Bill asked. 

“Because it’s really not Jewish,” Theo said. “I mean super not Jewish. The trayfiest trayf ever.”

“Danny’s not Orthodox, though, is he?” As far as Bill knew, the closest person to Orthodox in their group of Hillel-goers was Omer, and he wasn’t a fanatic about it. 

“No, he wouldn’t really do it. I was just trying to get your goat.” Theo kissed his hair. “Okay, I’m really full. Gotta take my pants off and lie down.”

“You’re wearing boxers,” Bill said. “I don’t think they cut into your stomach.”

“So what? I’ll take them off and lie down anyway.” Theo scratched his belly. “You all done packing?”

“For the most part. You?” Bill snagged the last dumpling and shoved the entire thing in his mouth before Theo could decide that he was entitled to half. “All right, I think I’ve officially eaten my weight in Chinese food,” he said after he’d swallowed. 

“Me, too,” said Theo. “Yeah, I’m pretty much done packing. Just need you to check it over and make sure I have everything ready for that England winter you keep warning me about.” He scraped the last bit of fried rice out of its carton with his chopsticks and ate it. “I better do it tonight or I’ll forget.”

“Good idea,” Bill said. “Tell you what, why don’t we do that now? I’ll go put the leftovers away and then we can go through our suitcases and get it over with.” There were about two cartons of food left, combined, and they would inevitably turn into tomorrow’s breakfast. “Sorry I haven’t brought it up before. I’ve just been exhausted this week.”

“Yeah, you’re going to work again tomorrow, right?” Theo pulled a sympathetic face. “Jeez. At least academia lets you have a winter break.”

“Yes, and Monday as well.” Bill sighed. His self-preservation instinct had suggested that antagonizing his colleagues by using his vacation time at the busiest time of year was not necessarily a good idea, not when he was still on informal probation. Since that was sound subconscious advice, he’d agreed to take on extra shifts the week previous. The upshot of it was that his workweek had ended up at well over eighty hours, and one of the beds in the on-call room was permanently imprinted in the shape of his body. 

“Ah, yikes.” Theo kissed his shoulder. “Okay, meet you upstairs. We might as well make the most of…um…what is it, twelve hours before you have to go back to the hospital?”

“About that.” Bill began to gather the cartons together, and dumped the remains of the lo mein into the crab rangoon container. “I’ll meet you upstairs, then.”

“Sure. See you.” Theo gave his head a final kiss and went off. 

Bill took a few minutes to put the cartons in the refrigerator - _neatly_ , as opposed to the leftovers that Theo put away – and flip off the kitchen lights, then went up to their bedroom. Theo was crouched over his suitcase, which had been sitting open and clogging the floor space in their room for the past few days. “Hey,” he said, looking up. “Ready?”

“Yes.” Bill glanced at his own neat piles of clothing, which were stacked by the desk because he was a considerate human being. “All right, what have you got?” He sat down cross-legged by Theo’s suitcase. 

“Okay, let’s do this.” Theo slapped his thighs. “You said things aren’t going to be formal over there, so I didn’t pack any suits or anything.” He lifted a pile of underwear out and pointed inside. “Socks, pajamas because English people are prudes…”

“We are _not_.”

“Sure, Your Majesty.” Theo smiled. “Um, a sweatshirt, couple of sweaters, some pants. They have a washing machine where we’re staying, right?”

“They should, and if they don’t, we can ask to us it,” said Bill. “I’m concerned about your packing, though. You need a lot more jumpers than that. It’s going to be cold and rainy and really disgusting over there.”

Theo snorted. “You packed a million sweaters. I’m not packing that many.” He pointed to Bill’s to-be-packed piles. “Seriously, look at that. It’s like you sheared a whole flock of sheep.”

“Then don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re cold,” Bill said. “I’m not sharing those jumpers with you, you know. I made them and I’m not about to let you stretch them out with your freakish shoulders.” He hated having to hand-wash sweaters to get them back to their original shape. They soaked up water to an alarming degree, and his forearms were always sore for hours after lifting them up. 

“I have half a mind to make you learn smithing,” Theo said with a sniff that seemed a parody of being affronted. “Then we’ll see how freaky your shoulders get.” He shrugged. “Fine, more sweaters. Anything else?”

“Let me see.” Bill moved closer and dug through the contents of the suitcase. Socks, lots of jeans, enough books to start a traveling library, nothing else truly notable. “No, you look all right. Might want to take some of those books in your carry-on.”

“And miss out on pissing off the TSA guys? Where’s the fun in that?” Theo’s tone was jovial, but his eyes were pensive and his brows looked permanently knit together. 

“Theo, what’s wrong?” Bill asked. “Please tell me. I hate to see you upset.” 

“It’s nothing,” Theo said with a sigh, and Bill knew better than to bother him. He would undoubtedly get his head bitten off if he did, since he suspected there was more to this mood than just Theo being a grouch. 

“Right,” he said, and squeezed Theo’s hand. “I’ll leave it alone, shall I? Let’s read in bed or something.”

“Okay,” said Theo. The wrinkle between his eyebrows relaxed only marginally, though, a deeply-carved slash in his stony face. 

That expression was still there when the two of them went to bed. It was there in the middle of the night when Bill got up for the graveyard shift, it intermittently dominated his face for the rest of the weekend, and it was at its strongest several days later at Logan International Airport, when they were standing in a queue to the security scan that was full of loud tourists with equally loud suitcases. There was something terribly wrong, and he was going to find out what sort of shite was going on in Theo’s head if his mood could linger for eighty-four straight hours. 

“All right, Theo.” Bill dropped his suitcase on the floor and pulled Theo towards him with the hand that wasn’t holding a carry-on backpack. “What the _bleeding_ hell is wrong with you?”

“Huh?” Theo tilted his head a little. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’ve got that same expression on your face like you found human remains,” Bill insisted. He was not fucking letting this go until he got some answers. “What is it, Theo? Do you not want to go on this trip? Because I would have appreciated some bloody honesty.”

Theo’s lips thinned, and suddenly, there was ice in his eyes. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Bill. It’s not this trip. It’s Smaug.”

“Smaug, your ex-lover?” The line was beginning to move. Bill picked up his suitcase and obligingly moved with it. “That was years ago.”

“And I didn’t tell you the whole story.” Theo adjusted the position of his duffel bag over his shoulder. “I told you he proposed, yeah? We were drunk. I think I knew it wasn’t gonna happen, but I got scared, so I ran off after he went to sleep. Didn’t even leave a note.”

This explanation made no more sense than the silence had. Damn Theo and his enigmatic speech. “Okay, so you were young and stupid,” Bill said slowly. “I’m sure he was, too. You’ve both surely grown up by now. Even if you see each other, why would he hold a -”

“Bill. It’s _worse_.” Theo touched his shoulder. “He…he knows about T.D.”

“Knows about…” And then the pieces of realization slammed together, making his head reel. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, ‘oh, my God’,” Theo said, and let go of Bill’s shoulder. Bill rubbed at it; he hadn’t even realized that Theo was clutching it so hard. “I got a letter from him a few years ago, Bill. He figured it out himself and he’s still mad.”

“How do you know?”

"I think some threats to leak everything to the media came into play.” Theo’s expression morphed into a grimace. “This guy isn’t…he’s not just an old flame. He’s _dangerous_.” The line shuffled forward a few more steps. “He’s a professor, Bill. In _Oxford_. You see why I’m scared out of my freakin’ mind?”

“Yes,” Bill said simply, “I see,” and Theo fell stonily silent again while they went through the abominably drawn-out security measures necessary to travel. He gave only his name when the security officer called them forward, and didn’t even comment on the UV light that the officer used to verify their boarding passes. Personally, Bill thought the way the paper glowed was fairly cool, which was a sure sign that Theo should have thought so, too. 

“Theo,” he ventured when they reached their gate – after walking past an array of tempting, wonderful-smelling restaurants with bright awnings that he _did not_ stop at, thank you very much – “I think you might be worrying about this a bit too much.”

Theo’s thumbs paused in whatever game he was playing on his phone. “You think so?”

“Yes.” Bill cautiously touched his cheek. “On the off chance that you ever run into him, I’ll protect you. Muck him up with a huge saline enema or something.”

Theo’s mouth twitched. Slowly, so slowly that it might have been a fissure opening into the side of a stubborn cliff face, he smiled. “I bet you will,” he said. He was silent for a few more minutes, then said, “I think I’ll do some writing.”

Bill nodded. “Then I’ll read,” he said, and with a laptop and a copy of _Go the Fuck to Sleep_ that some inconsiderate horse’s arse had left in the nurse’s lounge, he and Theo settled in to wait for their flight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Among the questions I posed in writing this chapter was "do classy English hotels have washing machines?" They do. 
> 
> And wow, no glossary for once. :D Yes, I'm also relieved.


	12. Jealousy is Cruel as the Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small towns are exactly the same the world over.

“Theo,” Bill said, “we’re getting close to Oxford now.”

“Ah, fuck.” Theo lifted his heavy head out of a muzzy sleep and dug his thumbs into his eyes, trying to rub the crud away and force them to focus. The Sandman had been liberal with his pinches, it felt like. “Did I miss the English countryside?”

“It’s just wet and foggy, dear,” said Bill, a dry emphasis on the last word. Theo leaned forward in his seat and pressed his cheek up against the train window to make sure, and yes, he could see jack diddly outside. As they moved, occasionally a bare tree branch or the outline of a building pressed into visibility through the weakly-lit wet whirls. Otherwise, it was practically a gray soup. 

“Not much to see, I guess.” Theo shrugged and moved back to rest his head against the back of the seat. “How long have I been out?”

“Mm,” Bill said, and looked at his watch. “You fell asleep as soon as we took our seats, so I’m counting it as the whole time. Bit under an hour.”

“I got jet lag,” Theo said through a yawn, which turned the statement into a vague mumble in Bill’s direction. His mouth was full of marbles and they were all clacking against his teeth, had to be, because his tongue wasn’t ever this fat and clumsy in his mouth. 

Bill shook his head. “Too _right_ you have jet lag,” he said in an acerbic tone. “Do you even remember what you said to the customs official at Heathrow?”

“Bill, I don’t remember five minutes ago,” Theo said. What kind of trick question was this? Bill knew he’d been asleep on his feet ever since he got dragged off the plane by one arm. For a guy who didn’t work out or smith, Bill was strong. “I’m assuming it’s embarrassing.”

“He flagged your suitcase for some reason and he found your porn, and I had to cover for you,” Bill said, his voice indicating that not only was this embarrassing, but that he was offended to the center of his fusty, contrary British bones. “ _I_ had to make up an excuse.”

Oh. Okay, that was bad, _really_ bad, more bad than Superbad. “Did I get in trouble with the government?” Theo leaned in close to whisper to Bill, just in case anyone around them had supercharged hearing. “I do try to keep my real name out of the crime beat, just in case anyone…you know.”

“Makes a connection?” Bill said, and shook his head when Theo nodded. “No, I told him you have chronic pain and are allergic to opiates. He believed it, but God, my integrity.” He shivered in clear revulsion. “That’s the last time I use situations from medical shows to make excuses for you, Theo, I swear.”

“No, I mean which porn?” Theo asked. The videos were okay, but that smutty graphic novel proof was not something he would have access to as a private citizen, or as someone who was trying to prove he _wasn’t_ T.D. Darrens. His pen name was right on the front cover. Fuck. 

“Everything. They found everything, but I was able to lie about that, too.” Bill cocked his head at Theo. “Your story from now on, by the way, is that you know the editor and you’re giving some input into the work. They were more concerned about the videos, although I fail to see how that’s any less embarrassing. It was _The Lion, the Bitch, and the Bear-Robe_ , Theo! And they took us to a fucking back room and looked through _all of it_ and I swear that official was laughing.”

“So just making sure, they have no idea.” He needed to know. His heart was pounding so hard that his vision was going _wham, wham, wham_ , splaying out all wavery with every beat. While he vaguely remembered sitting down on a chair and watching someone touch his suitcase, they couldn’t have outed him. He’d remember if they did. 

“Yes, they have no idea. They just know you’re an academic. You’re safe.” Bill glared at him. “And they think we’re both perverts, too, thanks very much. This wouldn’t have happened if you’d kept the DVDs in a case or something, or not brought them at all.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Lipschitz, don’t scare me like that,” he said through another yawn. Now that his heart rate was back down from hospitalization levels, he was suddenly tired again. “But you said I said something. Did I say it was for you?”

“No, you gave him lip,” Bill said. “I gave him that bullshite excuse about chronic pain and then _you_ , Theodor Derensky, you got up and said –“ he raised his eyebrows and put on a terrible Boston accent – “’Chronic pain? I _am_ a chronic pain!’” He shook his head hard. “I’ve got half a mind to leave you at the station. I made them let you sit down so you wouldn’t have to deal with the mindfuckery and you still pulled that on me.”

“Wow,” said Theo. “I swear to all that’s holy, that was the lack of sleep talking. I don’t act like that much of an asshole on purpose. Not with you.” He leaned on Bill’s shoulder. “So, worst day ever?”

“Close to it, but we pulled through,” Bill said, and paused. “And thank God that British Airways didn’t lose our luggage,” he added. “I’ve got a copy of a complaint letter in a folder somewhere about a certain toy that they _mysteriously_ lost when I moved.” He clucked his tongue. “Buggers.”

Theo smiled. “I think I got you enough toys to make up for it,” he said. “Who’s picking us up?”

“According to my cousin,” Bill said as he took out his phone, “it’s a cousin who isn’t her, only she’s not sure which because I’ve got about half a million of them. And as to the toy –“ he began, but was interrupted. 

“ _Oxford station_ ,” said a voice over the loudspeaker, so ridiculously proper that Bill probably would class the accent as ‘posh’ (there was a lot Theo had to learn about English culture, for sure). “ _Now arriving at Oxford station._ ”

“This is our stop,” Bill said, pulling his backpack from under the seat as the train began to slow down. “Are you ready to be nice to my family?”

“I’m always nice,” Theo said, and stuck his nose as high into the air as he could without worsening the airplane-induced crick in his neck. “Except for when Morningwood’s around.” For days after the funeral, Galil hadn’t talked of anything but Luukas this, Luukas that, and Luukas the other thing. Looked like he was taking after Team Gay Uncle, if the way he talked about how shiny that kid’s hair was could serve as any indication. Gad and Sima would kill him if he tried to pin an orientation on their kid this early, though, and the high possibility of Sima braining him in the nads with her pregnant belly was too much of a risk for him. 

“Mm-hm.” Lips tight, eyebrows raised, Bill put his backpack on and hoisted his suitcase out from the space in front of their seats with a grunt. “Just keep a few rules in mind and you won’t have any problems. Not everyone is used to your humor.”

“So they’re stuffed shirts,” Theo guessed. He took his (much larger, much heavier, thanks very much) suitcase out and hauled it into his lap for easier lifting. “You, with a much bigger stick up their asses?”

The train came to a halt, and Bill stood up, then slapped Theo’s shoulder. “Just my father’s side, but they’re married into my mother’s side, so be _careful_.”

“Jesus.” Theo picked up his suitcase and stood up, too, as Bill went into the aisle ahead of him. “Do I need to play the banjo theme from Deliverance or what?”

“Fuck off, you’re at least as inbred as I am,” Bill said. The two of them began to move down between the rows of seats. “As I said, just follow a few rules and we’ll have no problems.”

Theo rolled his eyes heavenward, just like Mama used to do when Papa said something too ridiculous to be borne by humans alone. “Fine, tell me and we’ll see if I can handle them without losing my mind.”

“It’s mostly just one. Oh, damn.” Bill pulled the handle of his suitcase free from where it was stuck on someone’s armrest. “No swearing around the kids, if at all possible. A few of my cousins have reproduced, and I’ve never met Primrose and Drogo’s son.”

And he’d thought hearing that Bill’s dad spent most of his life being called ‘Bungo’ was weird. “Sorry, Primrose and _who_ now?” Theo said. He yanked his luggage through the door and stepped out onto the station platform. 

“Drogo,” Bill said. He set his suitcase down and stretched his arms out. “His given name is Andrew, so he began life as Drew and it was corrupted to Drogo before he turned ten. Oh, bollocks, I’m sore.” He rubbed his upper arms with his palms. “Now to look around and find my –“

“ _Bill!_ ” someone shouted. No, howled. “Bill, you’re here!”

Bill whipped around, and Theo followed. There was a guy sprinting towards them, skinny but with the same messy mop of brown curls that Bill had. “Bill, you old bastard,” he hollered, “you made it!”

“Oh, my God,” Bill said, and his mouth dropped open. “They sent Ads.”

“Ads?” Theo said. “More like Nuts.”

Loudmouth Guy skidded to a stop in front of them, stumbled, and threw his arms around Bill. “You made it!” he said, then kissed Bill loudly on the cheek. “And you brought someone? Have you finally convinced someone to make the beast with you?”

“Wow,” Theo said. “Hi.” Someone who was blunter and dirtier than Bill, but in public? This guy had to be from his itchy-footed mom’s side. “I’m Theo Derensky,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Bill and I have been making the beast since June.”

“Pleased to meet you!” Ads pumped his hand hard and grinned at him, hands on hips. “Adam Took, Bilbo’s cousin. Call me Ads.”

The urge to laugh grabbed Theo by the throat and pulled hard. He broke down and doubled over, hands on his knees, belly heaving and eyes watering. “What…what the fuck,” he said to the floor. “ _Bilbo?_ ”

“Theo.” Bill’s voice came out unmistakably filtered through ground teeth. “People are staring.”

Despite his screaming abdominal muscles, Theo straightened up and wiped his eyes. “No way,” he said. Another laugh escaped his chest as a painful snort. “Bilbo. I never heard that.”

“Absolutely!” Ads shook his head, still smiling, and poked Bill in the shoulder. “His full name is William Beaumont Baggins, you know. It was a logical progression.”

“Ads, shut up!” Bill exclaimed. He wrenched away from his cousin and put his hands on his hips. As usual, it just made him look cute. “Do I need to tell Theo the pirate name you gave yourself?”

Ads artfully flipped him the bird from behind a cocked wrist. “Go on, then, Bilbo, I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Bill scowled. “Theo, tell Pirate Captain Adalgrim that he needs to fuck off and get our luggage into his car, or I’ll give him a shot of sodium pentothal and he’s not going to like it.” It was a completely impotent threat, Theo knew, since he’d had it thrown at him a million times. He chuckled and shook his head at the thought. 

“Theo, you can tell my cousin that he has no idea what I’ll like,” Ads said. He grabbed the handle of Bill’s suitcase and tipped it back onto its wheels. “You’ve got reservations at the Red Fox, right?”

“Yes, but tell Prim to stop gossiping.” Bill took Theo’s hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I really need a lie-down.”

Ads looked Theo up and down with a wicked grin, uncomfortably like the one Bill deployed in bed. “He needs a lie-down, too, what?” he said. “Did you two get the big bed, or one single occupancy?”

“Hey, Ads,” Theo said, “I’m with Bill. That makes you my cousin now, right?”

“More or less,” Ads said. 

“Then fuck off.”

Ads looked taken aback, but only for a fraction of a second. Then he detonated a shrieking belly laugh that made every head in the immediate vicinity turn towards them. “Well!” He wiped an honest-to-fuck tear away from one eye. “You’re officially worthy of Bill. Come on, let’s get you two to the inn.”

“You seriously call it an inn?” Theo asked as they began to move through the knots of milling people. “Are you guys that British?”

“Oh, my _God_.” Bill pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn’t tugging on one of his backpack straps. “Theo, do you want to keep drawing stares? Is that what you’re after?”

Ads cut in with “Yes, I’m fairly sure he does, right, Theo, old bean?” He gave Theo’s bicep a poke and led them out into the parking lot, where the fog was just as disgusting as it had been when seen through the train windows. How the hell could it be warm enough to not be snowing, Theo wondered, but still be cold enough to make a seasoned Bostonian like him shiver through his coat? 

Ads’s car was so quintessentially British in its tininess that it should have had the Union Jack painted on it. Bill, whom Theo had thought knew zilch about cars, surprised the shit out of him by rolling his eyes and saying as they shoved their luggage into the even tinier trunk, “A Vauxhall Adam, Ads, really? You’re such an egotist.”

Ads closed the trunk. “I’d take great umbrage to that,” he said, “but I didn’t choose it. Cousin Fort moved to Liverpool last year and left it to me. Said it would stick out too much there, if I recall.” He held the passenger-side door open for them to pile in. 

“Fort moved?” Bill asked, a flabbergasted expression on his face, and clicked his seat belt closed. Lucky, shrimpy asshole. Theo was having considerable trouble finding leg room, the curse of being 6’3” in a car full of short people. 

“Yeah, I thought everyone knew.” Ads slid into the front seat and started the car. “He got a job with some company, fuck me if I can remember what it does. Bollocks to him. If he wants to get a shiv in the gut, I say let him.”

“Someone’s gonna have to explain to me who the fuck Fort is,” Theo said. 

“Our cousin Fortinbras,” Bill said, echoed similarly by Ads. “He’s our Uncle Isidore’s son. Quite a bit older than I am. How old is he now, Ads? Fifty?”

“Fifty-five and counting,” Ads corrected, pulling out onto the highway, or whatever British people called it. His headlights cut a path through the gloomy weather. “His dad got started a bit earlier than your mum. The idiot still acts like he’s fifteen, though.”

“Okay, two questions.” Theo held up two fingers. “One, does your uncle really have that big a boner for Shakespeare, and two, how are you two related, exactly?”

“Uncle Isidore’s dead, but yes, he did,” Ads said with a snort, “and Bill and I are first cousins. His mum was my dad’s sister.”

“Wait,” Bill said, a little anxiously. He clasped his hands together. “Uncle Henry is still alive, right? I don’t want to have to hear about any more large family changes.”

“Don’t worry, Bill, Dad’s still alive.” Ads reached back through the gap between the driver’s seat and passenger seat and bounced a hand on Bill’s knee. “He and Mum still live in Michel Delving, just like the rest of us.”

“Hmph.” Bill folded his arms. “Theo, Ads forgot half his ancestry. Auntie Rosa is a Baggins, you know.”

“That’s your mom?” Theo asked Ads. 

“Mm-hm.” Ads changed lanes, his eyes visibly squinting in the rearview mirror. “She’s Bill’s dad’s first cousin, I think. I could be wrong, though. Bilbo? Correct me?”

Bill chewed on his lower lip a bit and _hmm_ ed, sounding much like his cousin. “You had it right the first time,” he said. “Auntie Rosa is my first cousin once removed. She’s Dad’s uncle Peter’s daughter.”

“Oh, right, Granddad Ponto,” Ads said, nodding. “I forgot he and your granddad were brothers. They’ve both been dead so long, I think everyone’s forgotten.”

“I never asked,” Bill said, “but that rumor that went around about Uncle Peter choking to death on a chicken bone _was_ just a rumor, right?”

“Okay,” Theo interrupted, unable to stomach any more of the dizziness that resulted from family connections zinging over his head. He’d never heard Bill talk this fucking quickly. “Your family’s messed up, Bill. I completely approve.”

“Not all of them,” Ads said. “His parents were sweet together, I think. Bill, did you ever tell him the story of how they met?”

Bill frowned. “No, actually. It never came up.” 

Theo could guess why, and the thought made guilt twist in his stomach. He’d told Bill how _his_ parents met: in a refugee camp after the war, where Papa was still reeling from Buchenwald and Mama was still too young to know what was going on. They were two of the only kids in the camp, and when the time came to leave, they’d been so attached to each other that their sponsor sent them to America together. How would anyone have had the courage to speak up with something sweet after hearing that? “Tell me, Bill,” he said as encouragingly as possible. “I want to hear.”

“Oh, I can’t believe I’ve never told you this,” Bill said. “All right, from the beginning. My dad was born in 1923, and the Second World War started when he was a teenager, so he went to university for a couple of years, but then he got called up. Trained as a combat medic, actually.”

“So that’s where you get it?” Theo asked. 

“Possibly,” Bill answered with a one-shouldered shrug. “The requirements weren’t so rigorous back then – you’d need a medical degree today, and he definitely didn’t have that. He ended up being shipped to Europe and he came back with some really terrible PTSD.”

“Shell-shocked, that’s what they called him,” Ads put in. “Mum told me he was seriously buggered up.”

“Fuck right off, Ads,” Bill said, although it was without rancor, and cuddled up a bit closer to Theo, shivering. “Turn the heat up in here, would you?”

“Your wish is my command,” Ads said. 

“Thanks.” Bill blew out a shivery _brrr_ and rubbed his hands together. “Where was I?”

“PTSD,” said Theo. “Your dad had shell shock.” This was definitely juicy news to him. As far as he’d been aware, the only mental problems that ran in Bill’s family had to do with some annoying cousins he hated. 

“Right, right,” Bill said, and nodded. “You’d think they would have had enough of him, but no, he got called up to go to Korea with the Commonwealth Forces when that war started. That fucked him up even more. Of course.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Theo said. “Wow. See, this is why I really have a beef with the military.” He taught enough classes about shitty warfare tactics that he’d definitely know. His students always went from ready to defend military strategists at the beginning of the semester to totally flabbergasted and raging against the war machine at the end. That probably deserved a teaching award, and he’d been nominated three times so far. 

“So Dad came back and his nerves were completely shot,” Bill continued. “He got a desk job in London, but that didn’t work out, obviously. Mum said he kept having flashbacks to the Blitz from before he got conscripted. So they looked the other way for a bit while he smoked a lot of marijuana, and then he came back and got a job in a bike shop in Michel Delving.”

“Stoner Dad?” Theo chuckled. “That’s awesome.”

“Uncle Bungo was brilliant, though,” Ads commented. “Brilliant, twisted little inventor, everyone was afraid of him. Not just because of the PTSD, either. He could build _anything_.”

“Ads,” Bill said, “am I telling the story, or do you want to tell it?”

“Oh,” Ads said cheerfully, probably willfully oblivious to the laser look that Bilbo was shooting into the back of his head, “I can tell it. Bill’s mum was twenty years younger than his dad, Theo. Are you surprised?”

“Not really. I’ve heard of weirder age differences.” Case in point, Danny and fucking Brian Feldman, who was only fifteen years older than him, but looked way older. The two of them were so disgustingly cute together that it was veering into just plain disgusting. 

“She was twenty-two years younger, Ads,” said Bill. “If you’re going to tell this story, at least tell it correctly.” That seemed to be the segue he needed to adroitly take control of the tale again. “Mum was a complete hippie, Theo. She stopped going to school when she was sixteen and traveled ‘round the Continent instead of taking her A-levels.” He shook his head with a fond expression. “Her parents were completely furious.”

“Wow,” Theo said. “So you definitely get it from her, then.” Made sense, if Bill’s hidden wild streak (dating a Jew) and Ads’s ostentatious personality (being a fucking weirdo) came from the same side. “Okay, you kind of told me about the Europe thing once. What’d she do there?”

“Contracted HPV,” said Bill, “the lethal kind. At least that’s what I think. She did end up dying of cervical cancer, and she was only forty-eight. I don’t think there could have been another explanation. She was definitely faithful to my dad after they got married, so…had to have been her trip.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Theo said. Disease had taken Mama and Papa way before their time, too, but at least they’d been in their sixties when they died. Forty-eight was just cruel. He put an arm around Bill’s shoulders, a little gratified when Bill cuddled him in return. “How’d they meet? We were supposed to be getting to that.” 

“Bike shop,” said Ads. 

“Yes, Ads, _thank you_ , but I’m telling it now.” Bill leaned into Theo. “Mum built this bike herself from a lot of spare parts. It was really practically a motorbike, so one day, she rides it up to the bike shop and it’s loud enough that they can hear it for a mile off.”

“Yeah?” Theo stroked Bill’s arm. 

“Dad’s working in the repair room, and there are these two absolute layabouts called Roddy and Jimmy working the front counter. This is sometime in 1967, so Dad’s forty-four and they’re somewhere in their twenties and they don’t understand each other at all.” Bill leaned into Theo’s touch. “That feels nice.”

“What happened? Did your dad call them lazy in front of your mom?” Theo moved to stroking Bill’s curls, which were messed up from the nap he’d taken on the plane. 

“No, it’s better.” Bill shook his head. “Mum pounds on the horn and shouts ‘Oi, Roddy!’” – and here his voice went up a few tones – “’I’ve blown a gasket!’ And she’s got long hair and a long skirt on, the real flower-child look. All of them were staring. And Dad knew she existed before, but he left Michel Delving again when she was just five and he forgot. And then she was away in Europe when he came back, so he never saw her before that, really.”

“Speaking of layabouts, that had better be as far as that touching goes in my car,” Ads said. “I’m not a hotel, you know.”

“Now you really sound like Auntie Rosa,” Bill told him. “And what kind of perverts do you think we are?” he added, voice indignant. “We don’t even do this with the windows open.”

“Yes, we do,” Theo said. 

“Shut up, you, I don’t need your input.” Bill kissed his shoulder nonetheless. “We do this in the privacy of our own home. Do you want me to keep on or not?”

“Yeah.” Theo returned the kiss to Bill’s cheek. “Ads can suck it.” 

“I can’t, because I’m heterosexual,” said Ads. 

Bill rolled his eyes and ignored him. “Anyhow, she leaves her bike and then Roddy and Jimmy start going on about how fit she is and Dad says no, she’s lovely, and they make fun of him and call him an oul’son. And he’s afraid that she’s going to think he’s a pervert if he goes for her, yeah? Because he’s twice her age and, I mean, there was sexual assault back then, too.”

“You exist,” Theo pointed out, “so I gotta assume he went for it and she said yes.”

Bill looked up at him and smiled. “Got it in one,” he said, “but I shouldn’t expect less from someone with a PhD.”

“No academic elitism in _this_ car,” Theo said, mock-seriously. “So how’d they end up getting together?”

“He sent her a rose,” Bill said, “and he put the translation of her name on the tag. ‘Belladonna’ means ‘beautiful lady,’ so that’s what he led with. She always told me she’d gotten that line a thousand times before him, but he was the only one who was honest about it.”

“And then four years after _that_ , Bilbo came along,” Ads said, “so Auntie Donna letting Uncle Bungo hide the salami is a complete foregone conclusion.”

Bill opened his mouth indignantly and snapped it shut. That look he got when he’d had the rug pulled out from under him was always so funny. “Yes, Ads, that’s what happened if you want to be a crude son of a bitch about it,” he said. 

“Look who’s got a filthy mouth,” Ads said. “For your information, we’re nearly to Michel Delving. I didn’t want to have to cut you off in the middle of something really heartwarming.”

“You know, Ads,” Theo said, smiling, “I’ve been wondering something.” Oh, man, he’d been waiting to bust this one out ever since Bill told him where he came from, but he suspected that it would go over like a lead balloon in just Bill’s presence. Ads seemed like a good sounding board. “What the hell is Michelle delving for anyway, and who’s on the receiving end?”

The car jerked as Ads’s laugh came out of his nose and his mouth at the same time and his forehead briefly slammed against the steering wheel. “Oi, there!” Bill snapped. “You’ve got precious cargo back here.”

“Stop being such a fussbudget, Bill,” Ads shot back. “I won’t let you die.” He flicked on his turn signal and slowed down. “All right, we’re getting on the road to Michel Delving. Enjoy the scenery, Theo. Sorry it’s not more visible, but this is really typical weather for us.”

“Huh.” Theo pressed the side of his face against the cold window glass. Ads had a point; this was really his only chance to see English scenery, so it would probably behoove him to make some kind of effort. As much as he strained, though, he could only see those same spooky outlines, although they were closer together now. “Finally entering civilization, huh?”

“Close to it,” Ads said. “Although…I don’t really know too many people who call Michel Delving ‘civilization.’ You’ve heard the phrase ‘fishbowl,’ Theo, haven’t you?”

Theo had to laugh at that. “I live in a small town, Ads. I’m well-acquainted with everyone knowing everyone else’s business.” Whenever something happened, Dee told Boaz Budin, who told Bram, who told Benny, who told Noah Reisberg, who told his brother, who spread it around town like nobody’s business (which was exactly what it was). That was how everyone had found out, five years ago, that he got a kidney stone about an hour after the renal colic started. Talk about embarrassing. 

“You’ll like our small town, then.” Ads turned, and suddenly the wheels of the car were crunching over what was unmistakably a gravel driveway, and an enormous brown-brick building not dissimilar in design to Theo’s own house appeared out of the mist. The turret was a nice touch, though. It made the whole place look even more like a haunted house. 

“This is the Red Fox?” he asked. 

“Yeah.” Ads switched into park. “The inn, the inn, the merry old inn,” he sang suddenly, “beneath an old gray hill, and there – ah, you wouldn’t understand,” he said, interrupting himself. “Sorry, it’s an old Michel Delving song. You’ll learn them someday.”

“Probably.” Theo gazed up at the windows, which looked dark and forbidding despite the fact that some of those rooms had to be occupied. “So does the whole town look like something out of Silent Hill, or is it just this place?”

“Just here,” Ads said. He opened the door and got out, then opened Bill’s and Theo’s doors. Theo shivered from the sudden influx of cold air – he hadn’t realized how hot the car was. “Want help with your luggage?”

“Sure,” Bill said, and scrambled out of the car. Theo followed, zipping up his coat and clutching it hard around him. There was a drizzle falling, forming beads of water on the outside of his coat and on the surface of his hair. 

Together, they yanked the luggage out of its vacuum-packed formation in the trunk and covered it as best they could with an umbrella that Ads kindly lent them. It, at least, had the Union Jack on it. “I’ll leave the two of you to get settled in,” Ads said, and pointed at Bilbo. “I expect to see _you_ at the Green Dragon at seven sharp. Bring Theo if you want. If the jet lag’s got hold of him, we all understand.”

“What’s the Green Dragon?” Theo asked. 

Adam stopped and stared at him, wide-eyed. “Only the best pub in all England, good chap,” he said in a grand voice, chest puffed out. Then, in a normal tone, he said, “Seriously, people come from all over to have our ale. It’s why Michel Delving didn’t crumble into the dust a long time ago.”

Theo licked his lips. Actual English booze, as opposed to the shit he’d gotten on the plane, sounded really good after having to squeeze his body into three different too-small seats today. No, three different too-small seats over two days if you counted the time difference between Boston and here. “I’ll be there,” he promised. “And I’ll drink all the stout you got on tap.”

“Then I look forward to seeing you there.” Ads clapped his back. “Now, if you two fine gents will excuse me, I’ve got to get home. World of Warcraft doesn’t play itself.”

“Yes, we’re ever so grateful you took the time out of your busy schedule.” Bill crossed his eyes at Theo and made a couple of rude hand gestures when Ads turned his back to slam the trunk shut. Theo snickered. “Right, see you at the pub later. Thanks for the drive.”

“Anytime.” Ads opened the door to the driver’s side. “I’d get in there before my luggage got wet, if I were you,” he said before getting in. 

“You heard the expert,” Theo said. As Ads drove away (loudly, because in his admittedly limited experience observing cars on this side of the pond, mufflers _sucked_ here), they trundled their suitcases up the walkway and opened the double doors to a small, warm entryway that smelled like pine needles. 

“Is anybody here?” Bill called out, shaking his hair out of his eyes. There was a warm fire crackling in a stone fireplace next to a Christmas tree that was obviously the source of the smell. By the look of Bill, he shared Theo’s desire to curl up next to it. “We’ve got reservations.”

“William _Baggins!_ ” a voice roared. Suddenly, Bill was no longer standing next to Theo, but several inches in the air, caught up in a hug by one of the tallest, burliest women Theo had ever seen. She had to be at least eighty, possibly ninety since her crew-cut hair was snow-white, but she still stood at nearly Theo’s own height. “Who raised you? Five years away and you haven’t phoned me once!”

“Auntie Bullroarer!” Bill cried out, obviously delighted instead of terrified and screaming for dear life like Theo suspected he would have been in that situation. “You’re the proprietor again?”

The woman released him and put her hands on her hips. “Oh, yes, a broken hip can’t keep my Peggy down,” she said, and leaned in to kiss Bill heartily on each cheek. “She’s well again, my boy, so here we are!”

“Isn’t that wonderful?” Bill stood on his tiptoes and returned her kisses. Was he possessed or something? He’d _complained_ about the European kiss before; what was he doing handing it out like candy on Halloween? “Theo, this is my grand-aunt Bandy.”

“But you called her ‘Bullroarer,’” Theo said. What else could he say? “Did I hear wrong?”

“’Bullroarer’ only because I can’t be called ‘Bulldagger’ in polite company!” the woman said with a wide smile. “Beatrix Took.” She patted Theo’s shoulder with the force of a falling anvil. “And you belong to my poofy nephew, I assume.” Her gray brows knitted and, hawklike, she looked down her nose at him with a gimlet stare. “Are you the reason he hasn’t sent me any e-mail?”

“No way,” said Theo. “We’ve only been together for six months.” He turned to Bill, who had a hand over his face. “Bill? Are you _facepalming?_ ” Impressive. The only other people who’d ever made Bill facepalm were Theo himself and a particularly recalcitrant patient with explosive diarrhea, and even the patient was potentially an exaggeration. He’d heard about that secondhand from Bill’s friend Monique. 

“Who says ‘poofy’ anymore?” Bill asked his palm. “What decade is this?”

“Oh, come on.” Theo grabbed Bill’s wrist and dragged his hand away from his face. “Don’t blame her. No one gives a shit anymore when they’re a million years old. They say the most inappropriate stuff they can.”

“That’s right!” said Bullroarer. “See here, Bilbo, your gentleman friend understands.” 

“Bill,” Theo said, “is everyone here gonna be calling you ‘Bilbo’ our whole stay? I’m not complaining ‘cause it’s fucking hilarious, but I just want to be brought up to speed.” Bilbo. Why did Bill look so much like a ‘Bilbo’? It was an even more fitting nickname than the one he’d bestowed on Dee when, as a normal six-year-old, she’d gone from one project to the other without finishing a single one: ‘Deelettante.’

Bill sighed deeply. “Most likely. We might as well get used to it.”

“That’s the spirit,” his aunt said. “Now, how long have you been traveling today? Be honest.”

Theo counted the time up on his fingers. Plane trip, plus those two lost hours when he’d stumbled around Customs barely awake, plus the train ride and plane trip made…wow. Well, it was still better than being stuck in a car. “About ten hours.”

Bullroarer tutted. “That’s far too long. Far too long. What a shame, leaving you two without food.” She took the duffel bag off Theo’s shoulder and slung it over one of her own. “You must be tired and hungry.”

“Actually, we had breakfast on the plane,” Theo said, “but it was a while ago.” Now that he thought of it, his stomach could definitely use some more food. Breakfast had been crepes (which probably came out of a package, but who gave a fuck), a mimosa that was probably half the reason he’d fallen asleep, fruit, English-style bacon according to Bill, and some pastries that were probably past their prime, but still good. British Airways knew how to do first class, and he’d said so to Bill while stealing his powdered sugar. 

“Then you’ll want to have tea with me,” Bullroarer said. “Luckily for you, Peggy and I have prepared the two of you a fine one.”

“Oh, Auntie, you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble,” Bill began, but Bullroarer cut off his protests with a held-up hand. 

“My dear, it’s no trouble at all. God only knows what you’ve been eating in America, but it’s not the Red Fox’s best tea spread,” she said. “You’re too thin for my liking.”

“Actually, he cooks British stuff all the time,” Theo said. “He made me stop eating fast food, too. I’m really pissed off at him.”

“And it’s lunchtime, Auntie,” Bill said. “We can have tea later in the afternoon, or another time. Seriously, please don’t go to any trouble.” He wrinkled up his forehead and brushed some water off where it had dripped out of his hair. “It’s very kind of you, though.”

“Bilbo,” said Bullroarer, “I’m eighty-nine years old.” Well, there went that question. “I’ve been a bulldagger in England longer than you’ve been alive or thought of. I’m well used to bucking tradition, so if I wish to cook you a tea at noon, then I’ll bloody well cook you a tea at noon.”

Theo smiled and nudged Bill. “Hey,” he said, bringing his mouth to Bill’s ear but still speaking loudly enough that the powerhouse in front of them could hear. “I like her.”

“I like you, too,” said Bullroarer, and pat-assaulted his shoulder again. “Now let me call one of Bilbo’s good-for-nothing cousins to take your things up to your room, and then we’ll adjourn to the dining room for our meal. Peggy is finishing things in the kitchen, and I know she’ll be ecstatic to see you.”

“Where’s the dining room?” Theo asked. “We can take ourselves.”

“Mm, what a polite young man you are.” Bullroarer reached around and honest-to-God patted his _ass_ , making him jump. “I understand what Bilbo sees in you. It’s through the doorway next to the fireplace.” She gave his ass another pat, this time squeezing the cheek. “I’ll be there in a minute. Dearest lazy Flim-Flam needs to carry these things upstairs.”

Theo looked at Bill, and without a word, both of them got the hell over to the dining room as Bullroarer shouted “ _Flim-Flam!_ ” at the top of her lungs. She could beat Phil and Caleb in an eardrum-piercing contest, Theo suspected. With bells on. 

“Who the hell is Flim-Flam?” he asked after they’d sat down at the table, which was a slab of dark, scrubbed wood that looked like it could conceivably date back to medieval times. “That’s one of the weirder nicknames I’ve heard today.”

“My cousin Flambard,” said Bill, “my uncle Irvine’s son. I’m actually surprised he’s working here. He’s always been kind of a layabout.”

“Wow, that does _not_ sound like it runs in your family,” said Theo. He took Bill’s hand and squeezed it where it lay on the table. “Ads talks a mile a minute. And your aunt Bulldagger? Shi _it_.” He pursed his lips and whistled in admiration. “I want to be eighty-nine and still working when I’m her age, and I want to act like her, too. Not giving a fuck.”

“Is that Bilbo?” Another elderly woman, this one short and shriveled with a braid of long white hair that fell over one shoulder, entered the dining room with a big smile on her face. “Say you remember me, darling.”

“I couldn’t forget you, Auntie Peggy!” Bilbo shot up from the table and enveloped the woman in a hug. “Aunt Bandy said something about your hip?”

Peggy patted a hip with each hand. “I had a double replacement not terribly long after you left, but I’m much better now. Don’t worry yourself about it at all.” Her accent, now that Theo listened, was a little different from Bullroarer’s. Those double-back speech compulsions sounded kind of northern. Scottish, he guessed, probably living in Oxford for decades. 

“Goodness, a double replacement!” Bill exclaimed, wide-eyed. “Would you happen to remember if it was open or minimally invasive?”

Peggy shook her head. “I was on far too much morphine to tell you, dear. Ask Bea. She’d probably remember better than I do.” She put her hands on her hips. “Now, are you hungry? I’ve made you a fine tea, if I do say so myself. Shall I bring it out?”

“Yes, thanks a lot,” Theo said. “We’re starving. Well, I am. Bill’s probably worse.”

“Theo’s right, Auntie,” Bill said with a nod. “We’d love tea, and please sit down with us. We have so much to talk about.”

“Call me Peggy,” Peggy called over her shoulder as she started back to the kitchen. “For the hundredth time, Bilbo, ‘Auntie’ makes me feel so old! - _oh!_ Bea!” Bullroarer, who looked to have come in from the kitchen, grabbed her around the waist and nuzzled her neck. “We have company!”

“No, it’s okay,” Theo said. He knew well how hard it was to resist the urge to be affectionate. Ambushing Bill on the few occasions he’d picked him up from work, and Bill’s subsequent reactions, had shown him exactly how much it sucked. “I’m gay. Not going to ogle or anything.”

“That’s good, because we won’t allow it!” said Bullroarer, planting a last kiss on Peggy’s neck. Peggy squeaked and swatted her. “Let’s bring the dishes in before these two fine lads starve to death. Plane food!” She snorted. “I wouldn’t trust it so far as I could throw it.”

“And that’s far,” said Peggy. “Hop to it, then.”

The two of them disappeared into the kitchen and came out with a series of foods in quick succession, all of them smelling amazing. There was a giant quiche steaming in a porcelain pie dish, an iced sponge cake, scones studded with what looked like currants, a platter of fruit, and three different pots of tea. By the time everything was on the table, it was almost creaking under the weight, and Theo’s stomach was loudly voicing its desires. 

“This is too much,” Bill said when Peggy set the last dish down. “I’m flattered that you went to all this trouble for us, but the effort…I’ve got to insist you two sit and eat with us.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Bullroarer. She took the seat on Theo’s right side, while Peggy sat to Bill’s left. “Tuck in, now, don’t be shy. We haven’t expended this effort for you to pick at our food.”

“Shit,” said Theo, while Bill glared at him, “when you put it like that, I kind of have to.” He reached for the dish of quiche in front of him and cut himself a big piece with its silver spreader, then took some scones and cake when Bill passed them to him. The first bite of quiche was so gooey and warm that it made him close his eyes and moan. “Oh, wow.”

“I made it,” said Bullroarer, sounding smug. “I’m so happy you like it.” She took a bite of her own piece and grunted. “Hm. One of my better efforts. Peggy, we’ve done good work today.”

“What’s in this?” Theo asked, and swallowed the bite in his mouth. “Vegetables, right? And eggs?” He didn’t have the best relationship with things stuffed full of vegetables, but he was willing to make an exception for this quiche. 

“Yes, plenty of veg from our winter gardens,” said Peggy, with a sip of tea. “Broccoli, cauliflower, a few carrots. Spinach and…was the roasted garlic from our garden, too, Bea?”

“It was.”

“Then that, and plenty of bacon.” Peggy smiled at him. “I’m so happy you like it. The gardens are our best attraction, I think.”

Theo bunched up his fingers and kissed the tips. “Delicious. It gets the Derensky seal of approval.”

“Derensky?” Peggy’s expression turned horrified. “Oh, goodness, are you Jewish? And I’ve fed you bacon!” She snatched his plate away. “Bea, I’m going to get the ipecac. Don’t any of you move.”

“Peggy!” Theo said, and put a hand on her arm before she could get away. “I’m so unkosher, it’s not even funny. My family’s ethnically Jewish. We’re not super-religious.”

Peggy stopped in her tracks and looked at him, wide-eyed. “You eat bacon?”

“Oh, yeah,” he answered. “I got a pizza named after me at all the local pizza places, and it’s not because I’m so committed to eating kosher, either. It’s called a TJ Special.”

“Tell them what that stands for, dear,” Bill said with a smile. 

“Gladly.” Theo wiggled his eyebrows. “It stands for Terrible Jew. There’s so many kinds of meat that the regular Meat Lovers’ pizza wasn’t good enough and they had to invent a whole new one.”

Peggy giggled. “You’re serious?”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t lie about something that ridiculous,” said Bullroarer. “Theo, my boy, if you’re certain you eat bacon, then eat more quiche. I’ll be quite insulted if you don’t.” She took a strawberry and shoved the whole thing into her mouth. 

Theo took another bite of quiche and yawned with his mouth full. Bill thinned his lips and huffed at him. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been up way too long.” Looked like the nap he’d had on the train ride hadn’t made a dent in his need for sleep. 

“I’m not at all surprised,” Bullroarer said. She took a piece of cake and began to cut it into pieces. “I finally made Flim-Flam move his fat arse – don’t give me that look, Bilbo, his fat arse is purely metaphorical. Anyhow, I made him take your things up to the best suite. After tea, it’s straight to bed with both of you until it’s time to go to the Green Dragon.”

“Good God, does everyone in town know we’re supposed to go to the Green Dragon?” Bill complained, setting down his fork. “For the love of – this is why I left, I tell you. This stifling mentality.”

Theo had to agree, but Bullroarer didn’t seem to. “William Baggins, don’t speak to your elders like that,” she said. “I know you’ve had a hard day. That does not give you the right to take it out on others, do you hear me?”

Bill shrank back in his seat and said, in a meek tone that Theo had never before heard come out of his mouth, “Yes, Auntie.”

“Good.” Bullroarer took a bite of her cake and spoke through a full mouth. “That’s settled. Finish your tea and then go have a nap. I’ll be at the Green Dragon all night, I suspect, so I need one as well.”

“Both of us,” Peggy said. “I’m partial to a fine gin and tonic, myself.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder. “But we’re neither of us as young as we used to be. I’ll have a kip as well.”

“Well, okay, then.” Theo shrugged and reached for a scone. “Looks like we’ve all made our plans for the afternoon. I’ll probably be too full after this to do anything, anyway.” Peggy beamed at him, which he took as a good sign. 

The rest of their weird lunch-tea hybrid meal went off without incident, and by the time Peggy and Bullroarer cleared away the dishes, Theo was so full of food that he felt like that gluttonous kid from the Roald Dahl book (any of them would do, since Dahl seemed to hate fat kids more than any other kind). Bullroarer took them up a set of wooden stairs not dissimilar to the ones in his own house and down a short, red-wallpapered hallway that smelled like potpourri and was lit with beautiful wrought-iron torches. Electric torches, of course, but they still preserved the old-timey feel. “Here we are, the best suite,” said Bullroarer as she stopped in front of the last door of the hallway. “I hope you enjoy your stay.”

“Auntie, we can’t thank you enough,” Bill said. “I wish you’d answered the phone when I made the reservations! I would have been happy to talk to you.”

She waved a hand. “All’s well that ends well, Bilbo. I know you didn’t mean to be unkind.” She took a key out of her pocket and handed it to Bill. “Do you remember the way to the Green Dragon?”

“Down the back pathway and around the roundabout. It’s a city block or two up Brandywine Street.” The nostalgia in Bill’s voice told Theo how often Bill had trodden that route in his life, and he wanted to know more. Had Bill visited when he was on vacation from college? He tried to imagine Bill as a younger, less cantankerous man, but could only envision his Bill with fewer wrinkles around his eyes. It was a nice image. 

“Thanks a lot, Aunt Bull,” Theo said. Bill turned the key in the lock and opened the door. “We’ll see you in a few hours.”

“I expect it,” she said, and left. 

The room was smaller than the hotel rooms Theo had stayed in before, but it was unbelievably cozy. Like the hallway, these walls were covered in wallpaper, although it was flowered instead of plain red. A big window with heavy blue curtains hanging to either side opened onto a view of the foggy street, and the bed was piled with so many pillows and such a thick comforter that it looked like it belonged in a magazine spread. “Wow. Auntie Bulldagger wasn’t kidding.” True to her word, their bags were also piled neatly next to the bed. 

“For fuck’s sake, stop calling her that.” Bill took off his shoes and socks and threw himself inelegantly onto the bed. “Go use the en-suite,” he said into a pillow. “I won’t have you waking me up to urinate while I’m trying to sleep. I’ll set my phone alarm while you’re in there.”

“Sure,” Theo said. Bill had a point. He found the door to a small bathroom and bled the lizard, sneaking a few speculative looks at the claw-footed tub that took up most of the room in there. It looked big enough for him and Bill both. Maybe there would be time for them to have a dirty communal bath while they were vacationing. 

Bill had turned off the lights and burrowed under the covers when Theo came back into the suite. He had a pillow shoved over his head, too, so all that could be seen of him was a few wild curls that resisted the feathery onslaught. Outside, the fog had turned to a thick sleet, and Theo had never been so glad for the opportunity to dive into bed. “Hey,” he said into Bill’s ear. “You asleep yet?”

“No.” Bill took the pillow off his head and spooned his back and ass up against Thorin’s front. “Go to sleep, Theo.”

“Sure,” Theo said into Bill’s neck, and put his arms around Bill’s waist to touch at the front of his belly. “Love you, Bill.”

“Love you, too, Theo,” Bill slurred, and that was the last thing Theo remembered hearing until the blare of Bill’s phone alarm snapped him out of sleep hours later. 

The alarm wasn’t the only rude awakening. At the sound, Bill startled, twisted in place, and threw his arm into Theo’s balls. “Shite! Shite, I’m late!”

“Great,” Theo squeaked. “Awesome, Bill.” Pain arrowed out of his scrotum up his back and belly and down his legs. “You got me in the junk.” Fuck this. He knew Bill was a light sleeper, but now the chickens were really coming home to roost when it came to dating a medical professional. 

Bill shook his curls out of his eyes. “I did?” Theo nodded. “Oh, damn. I’m sorry, Theo. I thought I was at work.”

Theo cupped his balls in the palm of one hand and shook his head. Movement was not advisable right now. “Just don’t do it again.” The pain was already turning into a less painful, but no less annoying throb in his abdomen. “What time is it?”

Bill reached over to the bedside table, flipped on the iron lamp there after a little fumbling, and picked up his phone. “Six-thirty,” he said. “I think that gives us enough time to pee and make ourselves presentable.”

Theo ventured a slight movement – so far so good. He sat up, gritted his teeth against the horrible resurgence of pain in his na-nas, and stretched. “You want the bathroom first? Your hair’s easier to deal with.” 

“I know you’re just going to put yours in a ponytail,” Bill said. “You go on. I’m going to change into a nicer shirt.”

Theo kissed his cheek. “Thanks. And I forgive you for punching me, by the way.” He pulled up his duffel bag and dug through it for his toiletry kit, ignoring Bill’s sputters. “See you in a few minutes.”

“It was an accident, you fucker!” Bill shouted after him. “And I already bleeding apologized!”

“I forgave you,” Theo called back. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still get on your case.” He shut the door and smirked at himself in the mirror, then brushed his teeth and tied his hair back. Maybe it was predictable, but whatever. Ponytails were a great look on him. A few splashes of cold water on his face and beard and he was ready to go. 

Bill was standing outside the door when he opened it. “Oh, good,” he said. “I’ve really got to wee.” He pushed past Theo and slammed the door, and Theo heard the water turn on. Prude. He’d already swallowed worse things than pee, so what did it matter if he heard it? 

“You sound about five when you use that word,” he said through the door. 

“Shut up,” Bill said, his voice faint over the dual sounds of liquid trickling into various bowls. “I don’t mock you for sounding like you’re on Family Guy when you watch movies with Dwight.” 

“That’s because I sound awesome and you just sound like a character from Monty Python.” Theo stripped off his wrinkled button-down shirt and pulled his birthday sweater out of the duffel bag. Even during his horrible mood episode, he’d wanted to wear the sweater on the plane, but Bill had talked him out of it on the grounds that planes were disgusting. He had a point. 

Bill came out of the bathroom, running fingers through his hair. “Are you ready?” he asked. “Oh, you look nice. Very dapper.” He stood in front of Theo and put his hands on his hips with an admiring whistle. “You’re going to be lovely arm candy tonight.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Theo. “I’ll have you know I have the brain of an academic twice my age.”

“Senility and all?” Bill raised both eyebrows. “Come on, let’s go. Put your coat on.” He shrugged on his own over the same cabled sweater he’d worn since they got up in Boston, and once Theo had put on his black parka, he locked up and they headed off. 

It was fitting that the fog-turned-sleet had changed to blowing snow and wind while they slept. Under the streetlights, Michel Delving was a perfect Christmas-card town, light layer of snow-frosting on the roofs and all. There weren’t very many Christmas lights, but he hadn’t really expected any; it was much more of an American thing to decorate aggressively. Bill had been complaining about it for weeks. 

The tavern was decorated with Christmas lights, though. They were spread out in an even array on its honest-to-God thatched roof, and through the mullioned windows, Theo could see the moving shadows that proved Ads right about how successful their destination was. It even had an old-fashioned shingle, a hanging metal piece over the door painted to look like a green dragon. “Nice effect,” he said, breath puffing out in clouds, as he and Bill approached. 

“That’s been there as long as anyone remembers,” Bill said. He wound his scarf more tightly around his pink face. “Are you ready? I’ll warn you, we’re about to get ambushed.” 

Theo groaned. “I was kind of expecting an ambush.” Not that that was going to make it any easier to survive a night full of eager relatives. Bill had survived Hillel, though, and he _would_ survive the Green Dragon for him. 

Bill took his hand. “I got an e-mail from Ads, though. He said they rented out the back room. That should make things a bit less…public.”

“So no strangers?” Theo asked. 

Bill shook his head. “No strangers.”

Theo took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Okay. Let’s go in.” Bill laced their gloved fingers together, and they walked through the door to greet whatever the Green Dragon had to offer. 

Immediately, the warmth of the front room began to unkink Theo’s muscles as the noise of the pub surrounded them Glasses clinked – and in some cases, slammed – down against the probably centuries-old wooden bar, the voices of drunken people rose and fell in a jocularly familiar cadence, and somewhere in the background, the music was a bouncy fiddle tune. Bill pulled him through knots of tiny tables with a repeated, muttered “excuse me,” using the same single-minded force that he’d employed to yank Theo off the plane (as far as his hazy memory of the day would let him remember). “Just keep walking,” he said, and glanced at Theo. “Don’t engage. We’ll be social soon enough.”

“Noted,” Theo said. He let Bill pull him towards the back of the bar, where a round green door with a shining brass handle stood out from the off-white plaster walls. That door was the same green as his bedroom back home, the same green as Bill’s car, and he had a weird sense that there was something right about so much in his life being green like that. Almost like he was home again. 

Of course, that feeling went away as soon as Bill pulled open the door and what felt like a hundred voices shouted “Bilbo!” at a volume that made the walls shake. Then the shouters surrounded them, and Theo went from borderline deaf to borderline smothered. A hundred heads of curls just like Bill’s, a hundred grinning mouths, and an improbable _thousand_ hands, all reaching for them – and Bill, against all odds, was _grinning_ right there in the middle of them all. Bill, who snapped at Theo for touching him when he had coffee-and-Red-Bull breath, was hugging relatives one after the other without a word of complaint. 

“Uncle Longo!” He embraced an old man even shorter than he was, with thin white hair and a terrible cardigan. “Oh, you’ve got to meet…Theo!” Bill waved frantically at Theo with the arm that wasn’t around his uncle. “This is my dad’s brother, Leonard Baggins. Longo to everyone else.”

“Goodness, my boy, you’re a telephone pole!” said Longo. He stared Theo up and down, just like everyone in Michel fucking Delving seemed to have to do when they saw him. What was he, the Jolly Olive Giant? “Bilbo, this is your gentleman?”

“He sticks out here,” said a woman’s snide voice. 

Bill’s expression morphed from ecstatic to a much less creepy nose-wrinkled scowl in no time flat. “Lobelia,” he said, in much the same tone of voice Theo might have used to greet Morningwood on an average workday. 

“Who’s Lobelia?” Theo asked. 

“I’m Lobelia.” The source of the voice elbowed her way into his field of vision and stood in front of him, hands on hips, dressed in the absolute loudest pair of pants he’d seen since the parachute version from the ‘80s. Her dark brown curls were shot with gray, but he guessed that she was probably around Bill’s age. “Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, William’s first cousin.”

“By marriage, Lobelia,” said Bill. “She’s married to Uncle Longo’s son Otho, but by birth, she’s a Bracegirdle.”

“And now she’s _Sackville_ -Baggins?” Theo said. That name was too fucking ridiculous to resist a good solid round of mockery. “That’s a riot. Hey, Lobelia, what are you? Grocer of the century?” He’d seen better outfits on the teenagers at Trader Joe’s. 

That got a big laugh from the assembled relatives. Lobelia’s entire head, face, ears, and all, went pink from the neck up. “Well, I _never_ ,” she said. “Is that how they teach people to treat strangers in America?”

“Nope.” Theo smiled. It was getting easier to calm down when the crowd around him was a willing audience rather than an angry mob. “Even my sister says I’m a rude bastard.” 

“That’s Dinah,” Bill explained to his family. “I’m sure I’ve told a few of you about her. She’s a bit terrifying and she never lets anyone forget it.” He looked back at Theo and wiped a hand across his flushed forehead. “Look, I realize it’s been a while, but could you all please stop smothering us? I don’t want to disgust you all with my sweat.”

The crowds parted and dispersed, and suddenly, Theo found himself in the middle of a much more normal party, complete with tables covered in food and various bottles next to the fireplace at the back of the room. “Well,” Bill sighed, “I suppose I’ve got to go mingle now.”

“Okay.” Theo kissed his sweaty forehead. “I’m gonna go get something to drink. Come grab me if you need to show me off.” He headed towards the tables, which were covered in finely-woven green cloth that matched the color of the door. “Hell, yeah,” he muttered upon seeing several rows of cider bottles. Nothing could compare with good English cider, except maybe the expensive Californian varieties and the stuff Boaz Budin occasionally brewed in his backyard. He took a bottle and popped the top off with a thumbnail, then took a drink. Heaven. 

Something pulled on the bottom of his sweater in the middle of the second gulp. Theo set the bottle down on the table and looked down, only to find himself looking into eyes as bright blue as his own. “Hi,” he said to the kid, who was wearing bright red overalls. “You need something?”

The kid pulled harder on his sweater, so Theo bent down and let whoever’s wandering spawn that was bring his mouth up to his ear. “I’ve got a biscuit,” he whispered. “It’s in my trousers.”

Theo wrinkled his nose at him. Well, it could be a her, but he didn’t think a lot of British parents put their daughters in overalls for a fancy meet-the-cousin’s-fuck-partner Christmas Eve party. “Are you gonna share?”

The kid nodded, black curls bouncing, and reached into the front pocket of his overalls. The “biscuit” he pulled out was easily recognizable as Weetabix, which was probably the saddest excuse for a cookie that Theo had ever seen, but he took the half that the kid offered him anyway and munched on it with loud Cookie Monster noises to make him giggle. God, he looked just like Caleb had before the birthday fairy brought him a sense of humor when he turned five…so serious. 

“I’m Freddy,” the kid suddenly told him. “Frederick _Arthur_ Took Baggins,” he added, pronouncing the names with utter care. 

“Oh.” Theo echoed his grave nod. “I’m Theodor Shlomo Derensky. Nice to meet you, Freddy. How old are you?” Freddy held up three chubby fingers. “That’s a good age. I’m forty-two.”

“Are you making friends, Theo?” Bill asked from somewhere above Theo’s head. 

Theo looked up at him, gave him his best what-can-you-do shrug, and stood up. “Conned a toddler out of half a cereal bar,” he said, “and what about you?”

“What I said I’d do,” Bill said. “Mingling.” He looked down at Freddy with a soft smile. “Who’s this, then? Are you Primrose’s son?” He reached down and picked Freddy up, settling him on one hip. “Must be, you’re just the image of your mummy.”

“I wanna go with _Slo_ -mo,” Freddy protested. “He eated my biccie.”

“Slomo?” Bill covered his mouth and snorted. “Theo, what have you been telling him?”

“Serves me right for telling him my middle name,” Theo said. He’d been called worse stuff than that, and right now, he did feel a little like his life was going in slow motion. Fuck jet lag right in the ear. “You regroup with more cousins while I was over here?”

“Oh, Lobelia’s trying to make everyone avoid me, but they know better,” Bill said. He bounced Freddy up and down a few times, and Freddy smiled, showing his pearly whites. “There you are, that’s a smile! You’ve got nice teeth, haven’t you? You’re going to get a nice bounty from the Tooth Fairy if Uncle Theo influences Mummy and Daddy into doing it, aren’t you?”

Theo crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out at Bill. “Not all American traditions are complete crap,” he said. “I don’t have any kids. Let me spoil my honorary nephew, huh?”

“He could use a bit of spoiling,” a young woman said as she came up behind Bill and took some M&Ms out of a dish on the table. “You must be Theo. I’m Primrose Brandywine, Freddy’s mum. He’s just turned three.”

“And my favorite cousin,” Bill said, expression delighted. “Primmie! I didn’t see you.” He put Freddy down and threw his arms around the woman, and she laughed, set the M&Ms down on the table, and hugged him back. "God, I’ve missed you.”

“You, too, Bilbo.” She patted him on the back and winked at Theo over his shoulder. “He didn’t say you were handsome, Theo. Where do you _find_ men who are this smoking hot, Bill? And why aren’t you sharing?”

Bill pulled back from the hug, shaking a finger at her. “Because you’re married, Prim. Where’s Drogo, anyway? I want to hug him, too.”

“Sick in bed with food poisoning.” Primrose pulled a face. “He’s past the vomity bit, thank God. Still couldn’t come tonight. I’m sorry about that.”

“Daddy has a _lotsa_ voms,” said Freddy, clearly knowledgeable on the subject. 

“Gross,” Theo couldn’t help commenting. “Sorry you had to deal with that, Primrose.”

Bill’s mind, however, had apparently gone to a different place. “What sort of food poisoning?” he asked. “And how long has he had it? I could come over and take a look at him if you’d like – I’m not a doctor, but…”

Primrose shook her head slightly. “Maybe tomorrow, if he’s not feeling any better by then,” she said. “Thanks for the offer, Bill. It would help for sure, just having someone who’s familiar with sickness look him over. Make sure he’s not going to die, that sort of thing.”

“Mm-hm.” Bill picked up Freddy again and settled him on his hip. “How did it happen? Freddy, don’t pull my hair, dear.” He calmly extricated Freddy’s wandering fingers from where they had twined into his curls while he spoke. Theo sniggered, and Bill turned his eyes on him. “Not a word out of you.”

“You got hairs like Mummy hairs and Daddy hairs,” Freddy said contemplatively. “It’s nice hairs.”

“So far,” Primrose said, taking both of her son’s hands in one of hers, “his powers of observation are unmatched.” She bent down enough to look her son in the eye. “No pulling Uncle’s hair, okay, Freddo? It hurts Uncle. Do you understand?”

Freddy nodded. “Don’t _hurts_ Uncle,” he said. “And Slomo.”

Theo let a chuckle escape, both at Freddy’s insistent name for him and the stunned expression on Bill’s face were too funny. “Uncle?” Bill repeated, and suddenly, Theo could swear there were tears in his eyes. “You want him to call me Uncle, Prim? We’ve never even met.”

“Of course,” Primrose replied. “You’re at least a generation above him, you’re related to him, and – Freddy, what did I _just_ tell you?”

Freddy batted at a curl, the picture of innocence with his wide blue eyes and quizzical black brows. “’S’touches, Mummy,” he protested. “Not hurts.”

Bill wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. “It’s all right, Primmie,” he said, eyelashes wet but voice steady. “Actually, could I take him with me? I should take Theo to make the rounds, or all the aunts and uncles will be very miffed with me.”

Prim tilted her head and looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “All right, Bilbo, I trust you. Just don’t take him out of this room. The tourists are loud and they’ll scare him.”

“We’re gonna mingle?” Theo asked. 

“I think we need to,” Bill answered. “People have been asking me why you’re not making the rounds with me.” He briefly tickled Freddy’s belly. “Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon. In half an hour or so, I’ll tell them English cider has gone to your head and we’ll go back to the inn before you can vomit on anyone. Speaking of which, bring your cider.”

Theo raised the bottle and took another gulp. “No problem. Onward, Jewish soldiers.”

“That’s not what it’s called,” Prim said. “It’s ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers.’ And Bill, to answer your question, the lasagna went a bit off in the fridge and Drogo’s sense of smell is terrible.”

“Welcome to Theo’s sense of humor, Prim.” Bill kissed her cheek. “Thanks in advance for letting me watch him. We’ll be back soon.” He linked his free elbow with Theo’s, and with Freddy in tow, they started towards one of the groups of people. 

God, and they said Americans were talkative. Within fifteen minutes (according to the clock in Theo’s phone), Theo had heard more nicknames ending in the letter O than he’d ever encountered in his life. He also learned that Bill’s three oldest uncles on his mother’s side were dead, which didn’t seem to surprise Bill after what he’d heard earlier that day about the latest uncle dying. Every older cousin wanted to know about Bill’s job, every cousin their age or younger wanted to know about his new relationship, and without fail, every single relative wanted to know how Theo had “made Bilbo crawl out from under his rock” and get close enough to him to bring him to a family Christmas. 

Theo answered most of them by pointing to his sweater and saying “I hired him to keep me in clothes,” but occasionally with the really old and crusty aunts and uncles, he said “It’s because the sex is really good.”

Some of the geezers laughed at that. More of them glared, but Theo had a hunch that Freddy’s presence kept them from totally reaming him out, Bill-style. It had been years since Phil and Caleb had been that young, and Theo had forgotten the joy of being able to use someone’s kid as an entirely figurative human shield. He was also useful in that, at one point, he interrupted the conversation that Bill was having with one of his dad’s uncle’s postal carriers (or something) to say plaintively, pointing to Theo’s cider, “Uncle, I wanna juice.”

Theo looked at the bottle and took an experimental sip. Ick. It had been delicious at room temperature, but now that he’d been holding it for a while, it tasted like an apple had thrown up and then just left it there. “Bill, is there any juice over there?”

“All I saw were alcoholic drinks,” Bill said. 

“Oh.” Theo looked hard at Freddy. He didn’t look dehydrated, but still, it was ridiculously easy to dehydrate a kid in a hot room full of people. Theo himself had once experienced the joy of kidney stones after a long evening of drinking beer and Red Bull, and Freddy was obviously a lot smaller than he was. “I’m sorry, but we need to go see if they have any virgin drinks for him at the bar. He needs some electrolytes.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the old man. “Children come first.”

Bill shifted Freddy, who now that Theo thought about it, had been remarkably well behaved for a three-year-old in the arms of someone who was basically a stranger. “We’ll go get something to give to the little lad,” he said. His accent had been thickening all evening, growing richer in the local flavor and cadence. If you listened to him now, you wouldn’t think he’d ever even heard of America, much less lived there. “Thanks for your consideration, Uncle Togo.”

“Freddy,” Theo said, “we’re going to find you some juice. You want to find your mom?” 

Bill stroked Freddy’s hair. “I’ll bring him back over to Prim, Theo. Go get a head start, I’ll meet you at the bar. Butterbur’s an old friend, anyway.”

Theo leaned over and blew a raspberry in Freddy’s hair to make him giggle. _Mission accomplished_ , he thought with satisfaction when Freddy squealed. “Okay. See you over there.”

The main part of the pub was emptier than it had been earlier, which Theo chalked up to people going home to spend Christmas Eve with their families instead of their firkins. “Hey,” he said to the barman, a portly, balding guy who – unlike most of the people in the back – looked absolutely nothing like any of Bill’s family members, “do you have any apple juice? There’s a thirsty kid in the back room.”

Baldo tapped his gray-stubbled chin. “I’m sure I have,” he said. “Just a mo, I’ll look. Will water do if I haven’t got anything?”

Theo leaned an elbow on the bar. “Probably,” he said. “Thanks a lot for your help. I know it’s probably been a long night.” The barman murmured something agreeable-sounding and began to rummage around under the counter, and Theo took a look around to get a gander at who the hell was spending Christmas Eve in a pub, anyway. 

His answer came in the form of a simultaneous flash of red curls in his line of sight and a deep, sardonic voice that froze the pit of his stomach. “Hello, Teddy.” God, no, no, he couldn’t be here. This was a nightmare or a night terror or something, the pub couldn’t be famous enough to bring people all the way from… “Aren’t you going to answer me? Your manners haven’t improved.”

Slowly, Theo rotated on his heel until he was facing the table full of tweed-coated academics, Drake Ignatius fucking _Smaug_ sitting at the head with the smile of a hunter who knew he was going to bleed his prey slowly and enjoy every second of it. “Iggy.”

A few of his colleagues chuckled, but Smaug’s smile only widened. “What on Earth are you doing in Oxford?” He used a long finger to stir the spoon in his half-full mug. Both hands were scarred with old pink marks and new scales mottled red and white, just as they had been a decade ago when he confessed how insecure he was about his psoriasis before kissing Theo so hard he couldn’t breathe. Looked like he wasn’t insecure anymore. “Have you come to beg for mercy?”

“Theo, have you found any juice yet?” Bill’s voice behind him, concerned but light, so innocent. _Go away, please, fuck, stay out of this. He hasn’t gotten to you yet._ “Theo?” Sweat formed in the hollow of his lower back and began to trickle down. 

Smaug’s teeth flashed bright white. “And who is this?” he asked as his voice dropped down the octaves into a frighteningly reptilian range. “Do be careful with that new arm candy, Theodor. Too much and you’ll rot your prick.”

Theo put his arm around Bill and pulled him close, ignoring his noises of protest. “We’ve been together for six months, Smaug. He’s not new and he’s _not_ fucking arm candy.” Smaug had always had a gift for getting his hackles up, which didn’t seem to have diminished any in the few years since Theo had gotten that letter. _I do believe that yours is the worst-kept secret in the Western Hemisphere_ , Smaug had written, and Theo wasn’t stupid enough to miss the threat behind it. 

Smaug pursed his lips with a dismissive _pfft_. “Hm. New arm candy, old arm candy, what exactly is the difference?” he asked. “You.” He pointed at Bill. “Have you got a name?”

Bill went rigid all over. “William Baggins,” he said, teeth gritted. “You’re in my territory, you know. I was born and raised in Michel Delving.”

“A dying town with one successful business,” Smaug sniffed. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking that you’re anything permanent. Do you think that professors from Oxford would come here on any other night than Christmas? Or that one profitable night can fill the coffers of a business that has to be permanently in the red?”

“Now just a moment,” Butterbur said indignantly, and one of the professors put a hand on Smaug’s upper arm. 

“Fine, then,” Smaug said, waving a dismissive hand. “I retract my apparently spurious assessment of this establishment’s profit margin.” Theo was so _stupid_ glad, at that moment, that he’d run off. Who talked like that? Pretentious jackholes, that was who. “But not my assessment of Mister William Baggins. What is your profession, my dear sir?”

“I’m a nurse,” Bill replied. 

Smaug nodded. “Do come over and let me have a look at you. I promise I won’t harm you.” His teeth flashed. “Physically.”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Bill, don’t go over there. He’s trying to psych you out, that’s all.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Bill said. 

“Yeah, well, you should be.” Anyone who got a kick out of psychologically messing with other people, in Theo’s experienced opinion, was a hell of a lot scarier than some nutso with a gun. “Don’t. You don’t have to prove anything.”

Bill skillfully disentangled himself and touched Theo’s shoulder, which was probably meant to be reassuring but just made him nervous. “Theo, don’t worry.” And then, completely unprotected, he marched over to Smaug and stood tall in front of his chair – the only position, given how much of a stick insect Smaug was, where he’d ever be taller. Theo hoped to God he realized that. 

Smaug crossed his arms and just looked at Bill for a long time as Bill visibly fidgeted. “Pirouette,” he commanded. Slowly, Bill turned around – why was he obeying him, for fuck’s sake? He didn’t owe Smaug anything. “Hm.”

“What?” Bill asked, hands on hips. 

“Ignatius, this isn’t necessary,” said one of Smaug’s colleagues, a thin blond man with blond hair who looked like a less evil Draco Malfoy. “Leave them alone.”

“Oh, piffle,” said Smaug. “I did say I’m not about to hurt him, didn’t I?” He stroked his chin and resumed looking at Bill. “I must say, I don’t understand.”

Bill squared his stance. Theo had seen him do that before; once, he’d picked Bill up from work, only to find him in the middle of an argument with a doctor. Technically, the doctor was his superior, but Bill didn’t seem to care, just argued with him – brave as all-get-out. “What is it?”

“Nothing at all.” Smaug’s tone was light, too light. “I thought I might find some clues to his attraction to you in your arse, but no, I can’t seem to. All I see is a frumpy, middle-aged, fat nurse with few career prospects whom he’s going to let go any moment. I do think it’s a miracle you’ve held on to him this long, and for that I salute you. It won’t last, though.”

“Ignatius, for God’s sake!” said another professor. 

“I’m only stating the truth.” Smaug stroked his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Darling Teddy is attracted to intelligence, you know. I happen to have an IQ of 176.”

Bill shrugged. “And he dumped you like a bag of rubbish, if you recall.” 

Wow. Theo understood why Bill had remained silent, if he was saving up for that comeback. _Burn_ , he thought, and grinned. 

Smaug blinked, the only sign that Bill had at all discomfited him. “So” – but his voice was just slightly rougher than it had been – “what makes you think you’ll last? Knitting him tacky jumpers won’t keep you in his good graces forever, you know.”

 _Tacky_? Theo would have gone over there and kicked the daylights out of him, but luckily for him, Bill beat him to it. Before Smaug could so much as smugly smirk over his verbal victory, Bill had drawn back a hand and punched him squarely in the nose. 

Smaug howled and fell out of his chair. “You bastard!” he shouted from the floor. “Baggins, you bastard, you’ve broken my nose!” He put a hand on the table and pulled himself up, slowly enough that by the time his head emerged, his nose was freely bleeding and most of his lower face was covered in blood. 

“You had it coming, you bell-end!” Butterbur called out. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t spit in your drink.”

Then, to Theo’s relief, all of Smaug’s colleagues started chuckling – probably because Butterbur had said ‘bell-end’ and academics were about twelve years old (which Theo had been accused of being more than once). “He did deserve it,” said the second man. “We won’t object to you bopping him in the face. He’s had it coming for a long time.”

Smaug pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face; it was completely ineffective, since by this time his nose was bleeding down his chin and onto the collar of his shirt. “You’re all _bastards_ ,” he snarled. “Fix my nose, Baggins. Immediately.” 

“He won’t be fixing anything,” came Bullroarer’s voice from behind them, and her hand patted Theo on the shoulder. “I heard you threaten him the first time.” Oh, thank _fuck_ , someone with sense. 

Glaring, Smaug continued to dab at his nose. “Well, Teddy,” he said, “shall we see how threatening I am when I give Auntie an earful of your secrets? I’m sure the nation would love to know.” 

Theo’s blood went cold all over again, and he must have gone stiff or something, because Bullroarer gave him a comforting pat. “If we’re speaking of aunties,” she said, “do you know who I am?”

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t had that dubious pleasure,” said Smaug. 

“Then allow me to introduce myself. I am Beatrix Took, proprietess of the only place of lodging in Michel Delving.” She stalked over and stood next to Bill, putting a hand on his back and glaring down at Smaug. “You threatened my grand-nephew, insulted this fine establishment, and caused great emotional turmoil to everyone involved. You will not be spilling anyone’s secrets today, or ever.”

“And you, Raj,” said Butterbur, “you’ve got terrible friends. I know you, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to give your rude friend a lifetime ban.”

The second man looked down at the table. “Smaug isn’t my friend,” he said. “He invited himself to this gathering. I’m sorry, Barliman, we only wanted a pub night.” 

“Quite right,” said the remaining professor in their group, an older man with white hair and a beard. “Smaug is entirely too full of himself.”

Tall words from a man who’d been giggling at the word ‘bell-end’, but he was on their side, so Theo suspected he could find it in himself to forgive him. “We should probably get back to the party,” he said. “I think Bill and I have had enough trauma for one night.” 

Smaug stood up, swaying a little, and sniffed hard. The blood on his collar was starting to dry, and he looked like an absolute fright. “I shall be seeing myself out,” he said. “This town is a backwater, but I’ve got to assume that the taxis are running.”

“Always,” said Butterbur in a hard voice. 

“Hm. Good.” Smaug began to move towards the door. “Good-bye, then. I must find a willing medical professional to set my nose and wash the taste of your swill out of my mouth.” With that last barb, he was gone. 

Bill put his non-bloody hand to his forehead. “Good God, I’m exhausted.”

“You ought to be,” said the old professor. “You – Teddy, was it?”

“Theo,” said Theo. “Theodor.” 

“Hmph,” the man said, and nodded. “I daresay I can’t say much for your taste in ex-partners, but your current fellow seems a real keeper.” 

“He is.” Theo smiled. “If Smaug was angling for a pity fuck, he missed the mark so hard.” Oxford professors probably didn’t really like the term ‘pity fuck,’ but he could give a rat’s ass at this point. 

“Bill? Theo? What’s going on?” Prim, wearing a thick winter coat and holding a drowsing Freddy in her arms, came into the main room. “Bill, why are you bleeding?”

“He isn’t,” said Theo. “He beat up my ex.”

“Oh. Good for him.” Prim adjusted Freddy’s knit hat. “He needs to sleep and I just got a text from Drogo. It’s all coming out the back end, apparently. I’ll see you soon, Bill.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find any apple juice for him, Primmie,” said Bill, and Theo was struck by how ridiculous a thing that was to apologize for. Bill came over and squeezed Freddy’s hand with his clean hand, and Freddy opened his eyes. “Your mummy tells me you’re going to bed. We’ll see you soon.”

“Ungle got a bleedy hand,” Freddy said, slurring a little. 

“It’s not my blood, dear,” Bill said. “Don’t worry. Speaking of…” He turned his eyes on Theo, and now they were angry. “Was it worth the red, scaly cock?”

“Mummy, whatsa red _scaly_ cock?” Freddy asked. 

“Wait, you’re mad at _me_?” Theo asked. “You punched my ex in the face. My ex from ten years ago. You have no right to start pointing fingers, Bill.”

Bill bit his lip. “I know,” he sighed. “I know. It’s just been a very long day. I think we both need a lie-down, and possibly some private time.”

“Kindly don’t corrupt my son with details of that afterwards, if you please,” said Prim. “Freddy, I’ll explain when you’re about twenty years old. Now it’s time for you to go to sleep.” She gave Bill a crooked smile. “Bill, your hand is disgusting. Go wash it off, and then Freddy and I will walk you out.”

“Red, scaly cock,” one of the academics muttered, and the whole table started laughing again. “Cheers to the best Christmas Eve ever, lads.”

If this was the best, Theo didn’t want to know what their worst was, but he knew way better than to ask. “Okay, Bill. You heard your cousin. Let’s do it.” Merry Christmas to all, he supposed, and to all a better night than he’d had. 

“Let me go say goodbye to everyone,” Bill said, “and go to the loo.” He headed towards the back room, leaving Theo alone with Prim, Freddy, and Bullroarer as well as the drinkers. Could have been worse, he guessed. 

“I’ve never seen Bilbo use violence like that,” Bullroarer said. “He must really love you.” She crossed her arms, which brought her heavily-muscled forearms into view. What kind of ninety-year-old had arms like that? “You had best treat him right, Theo.” 

“I agree,” said Prim. “Keep in mind that Bill has dozens of family members, and we all feel the same way.”

The shovel talk. Great. He was forty-two years old and getting the shovel talk for the first time, and he had already had it up to here. “Let’s just stop this conversation right here,” he said, and his voice came out a lot harsher than he meant it to. “I’ve had a shitty day. I love Bill, and I have no intention of hurting him. Ever.” 

Awkward silence reigned for the next few minutes, but it was better than being threatened, at least. Bill broke it when he came back from the back room, a basket of cider bottles over his arm. “Prim, did you walk here?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Prim said. “Actually, I live right behind the inn.”

“Then let us walk you home,” Bill said. “I know Theo probably wants more time with Freddy.” 

“All right,” she said with a shrug. “Auntie, we’ll come see you tomorrow. Theo, do you want to hold Freddy on the way home?” 

God, yes, he did. He needed a little kid to hold right now, to keep him grounded so that he wouldn’t be fucking paranoid all night. Smaug had that effect on him. “Sure.” 

She handed him over and the four of them went out into the snowy night where, thank all that was good and holy, there was no trace of Smaug. Bill fell into step with Prim on the sidewalk, while Theo kept a few steps behind them, rocking Freddy in his arms. “You want a song, buddy?” he whispered. 

“Yes,” Freddy whispered back. “Christmas songs.”

“Is a Hanukkah song okay?” Hanukkah had been a while ago, and it wasn’t nearly as important a holiday as most goyim seemed to think, but Theo really didn’t want to sing anything about Jesus right now. If the bastard had really died for his sins, then he would have swooped in and saved him from Smaug, and he definitely had not delivered. Besides, as a certain fellow grump would say, he was dead, Jim. 

“Yes.”

So Theo started to sing “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” just loudly enough for Freddy to hear. Freddy cuddled more firmly into him, which was nice. Phil and Caleb hadn’t been willing to cuddle him like that for a long time, save right after their dad died, which didn’t count. He wished he could go back ten years, back to when Phil was just a year or so younger than Freddy was now. He’d been reeling from an encounter with Smaug back then, too, but he’d had his own nephews to console him. 

“You’ve got Lucozade, right?” Bill asked Prim. 

“Yes, Bill.”

“And he’s been drinking plenty of fluids and getting plenty of rest?”

“Yes, Bill. Christ, you’re worse than his mum.”

“Then I think you’re set,” Bill said. “Promise me you’ll tell me if he’s not any better tomorrow. Food poisoning is bloody nasty stuff. You don’t want to mess about with it.”

Theo lowered his head and whispered in Freddy’s ear, “You don’t want to hear this stuff, huh, buddy? You don’t want to hear about Daddy getting the poops.”

“Daddy gots poops?” Freddy asked. 

“Yup. Here we go, next verse. _It has a lovely body, with legs so short and thin…_ what do you think the next words are?”

Freddy burrowed his head into Theo’s coat. “Dunno.”

“ _And when it gets so tired_ ,” Theo sang, “ _it drops, and then I win. Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel…_ ”

“Theo,” Bill said, “kindly pipe down. People are going to think you’re drunk.” 

“Everyone’s a critic. _I made it out of clay_ …” He continued the chorus, albeit in a softer voice, and continued all the way up the street and down the path to where it branched, leading to a cluster of small brick houses. By that point, he’d transitioned to making up his own verses, beginning with “ _Your uncle punched a jackass_ ” and going from there. 

Prim pulled a key out of her coat pocket and took Freddy from Theo’s arms. “Thank you, you two,” she said. “This made the walk go a lot faster. I know Freddy appreciated it, didn’t you, Freddo?”

“Freddo or semifreddo?” Theo asked. 

“Oh, ha ha.” Prim rolled her eyes. “All right, he’s asleep. That’ll make things easier. I’ll see the two of you sometime tomorrow?” 

“Absolutely. Good night, Prim.” Bill kissed her cheek and took Theo’s arm, and they began back down the path to the inn. “Theo,” he said after they’d left the immediate vicinity of the houses, “you never finished your last verse.” 

“What,” Theo said, “you want me to finish now?”

“Yes, but just this one.” 

“Okay, let me think.” He’d already been through Smaug the Smug getting punched, so now it was time for the aftermath. “ _Oh, Iggy’s nose was bleeding, his fancy shirt is trash. His friends say they don’t like him, and they gave the barman cash._ ”

“Perfect,” said Bill, “just perfect,” and the lights of the inn came into sight in front of them. Okay, so it definitely wasn’t the best Christmas ever, but for his first Christmas, it could have gone a hell of a lot worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Auntie" is a British slang name for the BBC. And yes, in canon, Butterbur was the barman for the Prancing Pony, but as there are cars here, the Green Dragon was a hop, skip, and jump away. 
> 
> As for what Bill did...I absolutely don't condone violence, and I realize that breaking someone's nose - as well as people defending him for it - may come across as a bit of protagonist-centered morality. But as we've seen in canon, Smaug is a scary fucker, and when a person has been terrorizing someone you love, you often go absolutely berserk. Also, he insulted the knitting. 
> 
> In addition, I don't condone Theo's views about Christianity, either. There are times when he's not a particularly nice person, and this is one of those times.
> 
> I can be found (for purposes of yelling) at godihatethisfreakingcat . tumblr . com.


	13. Which Wanteth Not Liquor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Bill and Theo's absence, the annual New Year's festivities have migrated to the Budin house, where a few surprises are in store for everyone.

The ham, Dinah reflected as she cut a piece, was delicious. Her upbringing hadn’t allowed her many opportunities to stuff her face with processed pork and she usually bought turkey bacon for the boys, so now that Benny had so graciously provided a honey-roasted ham for the New Year’s Eve party, she was determined to avail herself of as much as she could. This had to be her fifth piece and she still wasn’t sick of it. 

Every available surface in the Budins’ living room and kitchen was covered in either food or people, and although a fire was roaring in the fireplace, the windows that Boaz had cracked open an hour or so ago ensured that things didn’t get too hot. Good call, because Phil and Caleb were squishing her to either side. “Mom,” Caleb said, his mouth full of holiday-colored M&Ms from the bowl on the coffee table, “this party is awesome.”

“Yeah, it is,” Phil said from her other side. His left leg kept jiggling up and down and hitting her in the thigh, so she took a look at his plate. Just as she suspected, it was full of dessert and nothing else, which also explained how flushed his face was. 

Dinah took a piece of rugelach off Phil’s plate and bit into it. “Phil,” she said when he gave her the wounded-puppy look (which, at almost twelve, he was way too old for), “how much dessert have you had tonight?”

“I ate vegetables and ham and stuff, too,” said Phil. 

“That’s good. Still doesn’t answer my question.”

This time, it was Caleb who spoke up, saving his brother from having to tell the truth. Sometimes it was nice when they worked together, but this wasn’t one of those times. “It’s New Year’s, Mom,” he said, “and you made us wait for dinner and we were really hungry when we got here.”

Dinah sighed and finished her rugelach. She wasn’t about to say it out loud, but they had a good point. Bram’s sensitivity to long periods of noise meant that the invitation to the Budins’ had been from 8 PM to midnight, rather than the afternoon-through-midnight family affair that would have been held in Theo’s living room if he were still in the country. So she’d made the boys wait for dinner, and they’d practically been salivating wolves by the time the three of them got here. In their growing shoes, she probably would have done the same thing. 

“Mom?” Caleb prompted. “You’re not mad at us, right?”

“No, Caley,” she said. “It’s New Year’s. You guys can go a little wild if you want to.” She did steal some of the cake off Caleb’s plate, though, and thoroughly relished his protestations. In fact, it was good to see the boys back to their old selves, especially since they’d celebrated Caleb’s eleventh birthday four days before without Vince or Theo. While she’d feared a recurrence of that months-long depression, any downtrodden look on Caleb’s face during his birthday dinner had been easily alleviated with some Harry Potter references on Phil and Boaz’s part. 

“Dinah!” Boaz called from the kitchen, which was separated by the living room only by the division between carpet and linoleum that marked the change. It was almost, she thought, like her thoughts had summoned him. “Got enough to eat over there?” 

“Yeah, Bo, thanks for your concern,” she told him. He gave a nod and went back to talking to Omer. If this were anyone else, the solicitousness he’d shown her ever since Vince died would have pissed her off to no end, but Boaz had a gift for knowing just when to shut up and mind his own business. For that reason, plus the fact that he didn’t needle her about her feelings, she’d found herself hanging out with him whenever they both had some free time – this living room was more than familiar to her, since they’d watched about a dozen movies on this same couch. 

Caleb kicked his sock-clad feet up into the coffee table. “Boaz, Boaz, Bo-Boaz, banana fanna fo-foaz, fee-fi-mo-moaz, Boaz,” he chanted, singsong, under his breath. “Mom? Want me to do ‘Dinah’?”

Between the kicking and Phil’s foot jiggling, she thought it was a probably a good idea to cut them off now. “No more soda tonight, you two,” she said, a hand on each boy’s back. 

“Aw, _Mom_ ,” Phil whined, “what about when the ball drops?”

It looked like she had a balancing act to do. Exemplary act of parenting and the prospect of her sons raising absolute hell, or doing what the judgmental nogoodniks on the Internet would say made her weak, but making the boys happy? “One soda when the ball drops,” she said, “but water until then. Don’t test me, or I _will_ take away your soda privileges.” There, that would probably satisfy even those Internet commenters who said they beat their kids with sticks and made them pray to Jeebus every night. 

At least it made Phil’s whine regress to a pout. “Okay,” he said. “Can we watch a movie upstairs?”

“I’d prefer it if you two were a little more social,” she said. “We just got here.”

Caleb’s brow furrowed. “No we didn’t, Mom.” He pointed to the bright blue watch – his favorite color – on his wrist, which Boaz had given him as a birthday present (hadn’t _that_ been a surprise, too). “It’s nine-thirty. No, wait, nine-forty.”

Okay, that was strange. Unless she’d suddenly turned into Ginny Weasley from the second Harry Potter book and gotten possessed by an evil wizard, Dinah didn’t see any way she could have misjudged the time that badly. “No way.”

“Yeah way,” Caleb insisted. “We got here and we ate some ham and stuff, then I went and drew with Oreet for a while, and I don’t know where Phil went. Phil, where did you go?”

“I hung out in the kitchen,” Phil said, sounding proud of himself. Well, if she were the twelve-year-old in his position, she’d probably be proud of her newfound ability to make small talk with adults, too. “And we got dessert and you talked to Boaz a lot.”

Now that was definitely not true. “How could I have talked to Boaz a lot?” Dinah asked. “He’s been in the kitchen the whole time.”

“He keeps asking if you’re okay and stuff,” Caleb said. “That’s talking. Mom,” he intoned in a serious voice to match his uncle’s, “I think you’re getting old.”

“Yeah, probably,” she said, and added “you disrespectful little whippersnapper” with a ruffle of Caleb’s hair. She knew exactly why the time had flown, and it wasn’t because her memory was going at the age of _thirty-four_ , perish the thought. It was, plain and simple, that she enjoyed herself when she was here, and everyone knew time flew when you were having fun. It had been so long that she guessed she must have forgotten. 

Her sons’ memories were perfectly fine, though, and Phil proceeded to demonstrate by amping his voice back up to shrill levels. “So can I go watch a movie upstairs? Please? Boaz never minds if I do that.” 

‘Never’ was a bit of an exaggeration, since she’d only brought Phil and Caleb over twice on nights that she and Boaz watched movies or crappy TV with either Bram or Benny. Phil was right in that Boaz wouldn’t mind, though. He always had his Netflix account synced to the TV in his room, anyway. “Sure,” she said, “but don’t watch anything gory and don’t stay up there too long.” Phil immediately shot to his feet. “Hey, and take Galil with you.”

Just as suddenly, Phil plopped back down onto the couch. “I don’t wanna take Galil.”

Dinah quickly looked around to make sure no one had heard. She had no idea where Galil was; he was still short enough that he could easily hide in the forest of adults occupying the kitchen. “Keep your voice _down_ , Philip,” she said, “and I don’t care if you don’t want to. You’re going to be nice.”

Drawing his legs up under him, Phil wrapped his arms around his knees and chewed on his lower lip. “I don’t even know where Galil is,” he said. 

“I can help you find him,” Caleb said. Dinah couldn’t even describe the relief that flooded through her at that. The boys hadn’t necessarily been _unkind_ to Galil, but there was something…something cold about the way they interacted with him now, like they’d put on their company faces and demoted him back to acquaintance. 

Phil stuck his tongue out at Caleb as he threw his legs out in front of him to land on the coffee table. “You suck, Caleb.”

“ _Philip_ ,” Dinah said sharply, “do I need to take you home?” Maybe it was a mistake to let them eat so much sugar. Vince, kid whisperer that he was, would have known what to do in a ratfuck situation like this, but not her. She silently damned the Derensky stoicism, damned it ten times over for making her so much like her goddamn brother. 

Caleb popped up from his seat, grabbing Phil’s hand as he leaped over Dinah’s outstretched legs. “C’mon, Phil, I wanna go watch a movie. Who cares if we have to watch it with Galil?” Phil grumbled and rolled his eyes, earning himself another tug on his arm. “Come _on_ ,” Caleb pleaded. “It’ll be boring if it’s just me.”

“Okay,” said Phil, rolling his eyes, “jeez. Let’s go find him.” With very bad grace, he let his brother take him by the arm and pull him out of the room at a run. If Dinah had to guess, she would say that they’d probably find Galil alone in one of the upstairs bedrooms, playing with a piece of electronic plastic crap or reading or something. He’d been so solitary lately. 

There was most of a piece of ham and some chocolate-covered strawberries left on her plate. Dinah shrugged and finished the ham in a few bites, then carried her plate over to the kitchen to eat the strawberries in good company. Oreet was drawing with colored pencils at the kitchen table, with her brothers and both of the Feldmans to either side. Omer and Gad were there, too, but not Sima; she was on modified bed rest, last Dinah had heard, and she inwardly kicked herself for not visiting. Sima had to be scared as well as bored, so she’d probably appreciate company. 

Instead of joining the animated discussion about what sounded like the accuracy of some sci-fi TV show, she veered right and opted to join the standing conversation around the food. “Hey,” she said, setting her plate on a top of a small cooler on the kitchen island that had once been filled with various drinks. “What’s going on, Boaz?”

Boaz spun around and grinned widely at her. “Dinah! Good to have you over here. Where’ve the boys gone?”

“They’re trying to find Galil for a Netflix binge upstairs,” she told him. “Did I interrupt anything in here?” The fluorescent lights in here, she noted, were truly terrible. Boaz was a pretty good-looking man, but the buzzing kitchen lights just emphasized the faint wrinkles around his eyes and the weird shadows his ever-present hat cast onto his face. Benny’s jowls also stood out in a truly unflattering way. 

“Nothin’ much,” said Benny, “just talking to Chava here.” He put his arm around his girlfriend of – several weeks, Dinah thought. If she remembered correctly, the girlfriend’s full name was Chava Mandelbaum, and although Benny hadn’t brought her to Hillel yet on the grounds that it might scare her, they’d met while volunteering at a soup kitchen. Boaz had said he wanted to tell her more, but that Benny had vetoed it on the grounds of protecting her privacy, with his wooden spoon as backup. Under those circumstances, Dinah probably would have kept her mouth shut, too. 

Chava waved. “Hi.” She was shorter than Benny, with brown hair and a plump freckled face to go with a stocky, almost square body. From her long skirts and black shoes, Dinah guessed that she was probably Orthodox, although the thick blue sweater she wore matched everyone else’s outfit tonight. It was really, _really_ fucking cold outside. “You’re Dinah, right? Boaz’s friend Dinah?”

Dinah nodded. “Yup,” she answered, sticking out her hand. Chava shook it energetically. “Hey, nice shake. And I’m everyone’s friend, not just Boaz’s.”

Boaz leaned his elbow on her shoulder. “Nah, you’re only my friend, Dee,” he said, and she really hoped he was kidding. Possessive people got on her nerves. “Joking. Dee’s a right sound lady. Ignore me.” Still resting his arm on her shoulder, he took an open can of soda from the nearest counter and chugged a few gulps. 

“And she’s best at movie trivia,” Benny put in, “better’n Bo and me. We did a Star Wars marathon last month and she knew everything about the behind-the-scenes shite, I kid you not.”

Dinah shook her head. This was New Year’s Eve, not Compliment Dinah Night. “Only because I grew up with Theo,” she said. “My mom always liked to tell this story about how Theo ran around the house with a mixing bowl on his head, carrying a rolling pin and pretending to be Darth Vader.”

“Oh wow, _really_?” asked Chava. Her eyes were wide, and Dinah reminded herself not to let Theo show his true colors around this one until she and Benny had been together for at least a year. He had definite potential to scare people off. 

“Yup. He was six when the first one came out.” _Spaceballs_ had come out ten years after that and his quoting had become truly insufferable, but she saw no reason that Chava had to know that. “I could probably find a photo somewhere if I needed to. You know,” she clarified, ducking out from under Boaz’s elbow, “blackmail material.”

Chava laughed. “Brothers can be like that, can’t they?” she said. “I have three.”

“ _Three?_ ” Dinah repeated. “I barely survived two –“ she caught herself – “Theo.” This was not the right time to initiate a conversation about Forrest. That was for family only, or very good friends. Boaz had gotten the story a week or so after Vince’s funeral, but that was a special circumstance. “You must have a lot of patience.”

“Well,” Chava said, “three brothers and two sisters. I’m right in the middle. Growing up was kind of chaotic.”

“And she still came over to cook with me,” Benny said, squeezing her shoulder. “This lass is a treasure.”

Chava had been here during the ham preparation? Was Benny asking her to compromise her principles? That was incredibly not cool. “Wait,” Dinah said slowly, “is your family Orthodox?” 

“Mm-hm.”

“Then how are you okay with the ham thing?” she asked. “That’s the least kosher stuff ever.”

“I _grew up_ really Orthodox,” Chava explained. “That doesn’t mean I agree with everything the rabbis have to say. I mean, I’m getting my PhD in physics. My parents didn’t talk to me for a long time when I made that announcement.”

“Oh.” That explained why Benny was attracted to her. He was definitely a little off the grid himself. “So just to clarify,” Dinah said, “you’re okay with the ham?”

Chava nodded, smiling. “I’m definitely okay with the ham.”

Dinah smiled back – Chava had a nice smile, and definitely better teeth than Dinah herself did – and popped one of the chocolate-covered strawberries into her mouth for lack of anything to say. She hated awkward pauses, but eating was always a foolproof excuse. “Hey, these are really good," she said. “You dip ‘em yourself, Benny?” 

Benny shook his head. “Nope,” he said, his voice full of regret. “Got ‘em out of a packet, I did. It was going to be enough work checking on the ham all day. I made the lemon squares, though. And the chocolate brownies!” 

“Boaz,” Dinah said, turning to him, “what did you do to help?”

“I _helped_ ,” Boaz objected, putting his hands behind his back and thrusting his chest forward. “I chopped the vegetables for the vegetable plate when Bram had to lie down. That’s helping.”

“Yeah, and otherwise you sat around and watched telly all day,” Benny told him. “That’s not helpful at –“

“Mom,” Phil shouted from the living room, “Netflix isn’t working! What are we supposed to do now?” 

She looked over and found all three boys standing there, Galil clutching some kind of video game in his hands. “Did you try turning it off and then turning it on again?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” Caleb said. “It still doesn’t work. And we’re bored.”

“Oh, for the love of…” Benny muttered, and then raised his voice to normal levels. “Boaz, did you forget t’ pay the Internet bill again? You know it almost lost me my job last time.” He wagged a finger at his brother, which – since he was still wearing a flowered apron over his sweater and jeans – looked like something out of one of the comedies on BBC that he and Boaz had roped Dinah into watching. 

Boaz wagged his finger right back. “I paid the Internet bill,” he said. “You wound me, Benny. Serve you right to lose your job. Maybe you’ll get onto the light side and do tech support for Microsoft instead of fookin’ _Apple_!”

One of Benny’s eyes twitched. “Don’t you insult Apple,” he said quietly. His thick mustache trembled. 

This was a fight Dinah didn’t want to have to deal with, not again. Last time she’d been caught in the middle of a PC vs. Mac fight between the Budin brothers, she’d nearly gotten a black eye when Benny took a swing at Boaz and she stood up at the wrong second. “Okay!” She put a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’re not rehashing this. Computers are great, let’s leave it at that.” She lowered her eyebrows and gave both of them her best Mom Look, which worked on Phil and Caleb most of the time. “Right now, we have bored kids to deal with.”

“Can we do video games, Mom?” Caleb asked as he tugged at Galil’s device. “Galil got a DS for Hanukkah and he has some multiplayer stuff.”

“Ha!” Boaz whooped in triumph and whacked Benny’s back (a little harder, Dinah thought, than the situation called for). “I _told_ ye I paid the Internet bill! You’ve got to have Internet to play multiplayer games here.”

“Oh, fine, y’paid the Internet bill.” Benny rolled up his sleeves, crossed his arms, and rolled his eyes so hard that they nearly disappeared into their orbits. “Are ye goin’ to hold this over my head all night?”

“Mrs. Adler-Derensky, I don’t want to share my video game,” Galil said. He sounded like he was about to cry, and when Dinah looked over to see why the hell that was, she saw Caleb still pulling at his DS. “Luukas is on tonight, and we’re doing Nintendogs ‘cause he’s _never_ on.”

Now it was Dinah’s turn to roll her eyes. Just her luck that the boys would go and do something that necessitated another months-long period of being grounded only a short time after the last one had expired. Wherever Vince was, he had to be fucking proud of them right now. “You two are cruising for a bruising,” she said, and went over to snatch the DS out of Caleb’s almost-successful grasp and hand it back to Galil. “Metaphorical bruising.” _Chava’s new_ , she reminded herself. She definitely didn’t want to give the impression that she hit her kids because her words got misinterpreted. 

Caleb’s voice scaled up about fifty decibels as he protested “But Mom, I’m _bored!_ ” Well, duh. That much was obvious. He was practically vibrating in place, and behind him, Phil shifted from foot to foot like he had to pee. 

“Would you kids pipe down?” Omer shouted. “We can’t talk politics if we can’t hear ourselves think!”

At that moment, Dinah really regretted letting them have all the dessert they wanted. If this happened again next year, like it had this year on Boaz’s urging and her acquiescence, she was setting them a three-cookie limit. “Philip. Caleb.” She scruffed the both of them by their shirt collars and hauled them to her side. “You’re pissing people off. Find some way to amuse yourselves or I’m taking you home.”

Thank God for Benny and his weird conflict radar. “All right!” he said loudly behind her, clapping his hands together. “It’s past ten. You know what it’s time for, everyone?”

All three boys perked up right away. “What’s it time for?” Galil asked. 

Benny came over and with a grand sweep of his arm, pulled aside the blinds covering the glass door to the backyard. “Time for a polar bear dip!” he exclaimed, his grin extending from ear to ear. 

There wasn’t much to see, given that everything was covered in snow as thick as pudding, but Dee knew there wasn’t usually a plastic kiddie pool in the Budins’ yard. “Is that a _Slip’n’Slide?_ ” she asked, incredulous. Did Benny actually do this when it _wasn’t_ a matter of life and death? He had to be on some kind of drug. 

“Yep!” Benny stroked his mustache. She’d never seen him look more proud. “Oi, everyone!” he shouted, hands cupped around his mouth, and the low buzz of conversation ceased. Even Bram, who’d been seated in an armchair in front of the fireplace, talking to himself the whole evening, looked up. “Right, here’s what’s happening. We’ve got about two hours ‘til the ball drops, so everyone who wants to can go home and get their swimsuits. I’ve got a pot of hot chocolate for anyone who finishes the dip with me.” His upper arms wobbled as he clapped his hands again. “Who’s up for it?”

“I know a few kids who aren’t goin’ to be bored again tonight,” Boaz’s voice murmured into her ear. 

Dinah jumped about three feet and spun around. “How the hell did I not hear you?” she demanded. Of course he was wearing a shit-eating grin, because everyone seemed to get a kick out of making her life that much more difficult. “Do I have to put a bell on you?”

Boaz stuck out his tongue at her and hopped up and down a few times. “Magic feet,” he said, “perfect t’ soothe the savage hungover brother with a fryin’ pan. Are ye doin’ the swim or not?”

“Oh, God, I don’t know,” she answered. It felt like every square inch of skin on her body had contracted into goosebumps at the thought of going out in that, not to mention that her nipples were so hard that they hurt and there was probably a wardrobe malfunction going on through her bra. “I can try, I guess.” Over her dead body would she let it be said that Dinah Adler-Derensky was a coward. 

“Mom, I want to do the swim,” Caleb said as he came up to her and took her hand. “Can you take me and Phil to go get our suits? We’re both gonna do it.” His eyes widened, and he added quickly, “I mean, can you _please_ take me and Phil to go get our suits.”

“Nice recovery,” Dinah told him. “Just give me a minute to get my coat. Actually, if you don’t mind me just bringing you random suits, I can go without you.” Having to wait for the boys to finish rummaging around in their drawers and stop throwing stuff at each other would just make the otherwise ten-minute trip take longer. 

“Dinah?” Danny said as he helped Oreet into her coat. “If you’ll lend me your house key, I can take the boys to get suits.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that, Danny,” she said. Much as she might want him to, everyone had done her enough favors the last few months. The prospect of more emotional debt was just demoralizing. 

Danny shook his head and clucked his tongue. “It’s a five-minute delay, if that,” he said. “I know where your house is and the boys can run in and out. Simple.” 

It was starting to sound more and more appealing by the second. Danny was a hell of a lot stricter than she was, if possessed of a tendency to play Mother Teratorn when he thought Oreet was even in danger of being in danger. If he were the one taking the boys to get their suits, there would be no underwear throwing and they might even get back before the ball dropped. “Okay,” Dinah told him, and took her car key off the keyring she dug out of her jeans. “I really appreciate it, Danny.”

“Oh, Dinah, it’s not a problem.” Danny smiled and gave his head a dismissive shake. “Come on, boys,” he called out. “I’m giving you a ride to your house for bathing suits. Look sharp!”

“But what about our house, Danny?” Dinah heard Oreet ask as Danny, with all the kids in tow, swept past her. Right behind them were Gad, Omer, and Galil, all wearing puffy winter coats (fluorescent green, in Galil’s case), with the hand-in-hand couple of Dwight and Noah bringing up the rear. 

“It’s a five-minute detour.” They were in the foyer now, probably crowding it if you went by Danny’s next exclamation. “Gad, would you move, please? You’re in my way!”

“Touchy, touchy,” Gad grumbled. Dinah snickered. Ah, Danny and his shitty brain-to-mouth filter – always a joy to listen to. Even in a pissy mood, _she_ wouldn’t dare to cross Gad. “Galli, _lekh_ , people are waiting.”

“Okay, _Aba_ ,” Galil said. “Can I wear my wetsuit? It’s cold out.”

The front door opened with its characteristic screech (Dinah knew from experience that no matter how many times Benny put WD-40 on the hinges, they never smoothed enough to stop making a noise that heralded the opening of the gates of hell). “Sure. Come on, Galil,” Gad said, “outside. We’re letting the cold in.” Then there was a murmur of voices and the satiny shuffle of coat on coat, and the door slammed shut again, leaving only a gust of freezing-cold air and wonderful silence in its wake. 

The gust traveled through the foyer to whirl around Dinah’s body, and she shivered and retreated to the couch. From his armchair, Bram grunted and inclined his head at her, then got up and went upstairs. Apart from Brian Feldman, who looked to be dozing at the kitchen table, she was alone in the combined social area, which meant she could do what she’d wanted to do all night and spread her legs apart to let the crotch of her too-tight jeans air out with a sigh of relief. 

“Bit of a break from parenting, eh?” Boaz asked, and flopped down beside her. 

She snapped her legs together and yelped. “Jesus, Boaz! Next birthday, I’m getting you a fucking bell.” As couch companions went, though, he wasn’t all that objectionable. At least he wasn’t about to pull on her good sweater and say _Mom, Mom, Mom, hey Mom!_ until she went insane. “Where did Benny go?”

“Eh, he let her in on the secret event this afternoon,” Boaz said, pulling out an unlabeled bottle from behind his back. “They’re upstairs gettin’ changed into their swimsuits, I expect. D’ye want some peppermint mead?”

“Is that what that stuff is?” Dinah asked. She examined the bottle with her most critical squint. It was made of brown glass, and the liquid inside looked shady to say the least. “Where did you get it?”

Boaz popped the cork off between his thumb and forefinger and took a healthy gulp. “Friend of mine made it,” he said. “No, don’t look at me like that, Dee, he’s got a license to distill. This stuff’s not got formaldehyde in it or anything.”

“I’m not worried about formaldehyde,” she said. “I’m worried about, you know, going blind from the alcohol content or wood alcohol or something. License to distill, license to _kill_. Don’t you guys have moonshine horror stories in Ireland?” 

He took another swig and grinned at her. “Perfectly fine,” he said. “Me da had a still out back o’ the house. I can tell what’s good at fifty paces, Deedee.” Opening his mouth, he breathed out hard and exhaled peppermint-honey fumes in her direction. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Boaz.” Dinah waved away the mead breath, despite the fact that it didn’t really smell all that bad. Mint had that effect. “And don’t call me that.” 

He tipped over to the side and blew a raspberry on her neck, just like he’d done at movie night last week and the week before, and two weeks before that (although he’d taken a week’s break when she threatened to punch his head off his shoulders). Usually, it just made her growl at him, but this time she shocked herself by squirming in place as warmth shot up and down her spine from the place he’d kissed. 

But before she could consider what the hell was happening to her, Boaz pulled back, face apologetic. Even his mustache looked downtrodden. “Sorry, Dee, I shouldn’t do that t’ye on a holiday. I know ye don’t like it.” His cheeks went pink for some reason and he cleared his throat, then cast around for the bottle. “Want some?” He swished the bottle back and forth, making the mead slosh. “Or a beer.”

Dinah shook her head. Her heart was suddenly pounding. Boaz’s face swam in front of her eyes, laugh lines and full, round lower lip and _ridiculous_ fucking mustache, like she’d had too much to drink although she’d touched nothing but soda tonight. “I don’t like beer,” she said. She had a vague suspicion that she was speaking way too loudly, but her voice sounded so tinny and far away. 

“Don’t like beer?” Boaz said with a quirk of one brow. “But I’ve seen –“

“I like _you_ ,” she interrupted. “I want _you_.”

Boaz’s mouth fell open, lower lip glistening and pouty beneath the curve of mustache. “Dee,” he said unsteadily, “are you taking the - ” 

She lunged forward and cut off his sentence with her mouth against his in a frantic, hungry kiss. Boaz fell back against the couch cushions and she came with him, ending up with one knee in his lap and the other splayed out to one side as all the while, he kissed her again and again. His hands clasped two handfuls of her hair and pulled her face closer, and with every kiss, he let out a quiet, needy whimper that went straight to her wet crotch. 

“Get a room,” came Brian’s stern voice. Dinah pulled back from Boaz and extended her back enough to see Brian with his arms crossed and his lips twisted in what looked like disgust, looking at her down his long nose. “What if the children come back?” he asked. “Are you going to let them see that?”

Boaz put a hand over his face. “Fuck right off, Brian,” he mumbled into his palm, “it’s m’own house.” 

Dinah echoed his facepalm. “He’s right, Boaz.” That was a mood-killer, all right. Where before she’d been hot all over from Boaz’s mouth, now she was hot because of Brian’s, and not in a good way. “We gotta stop.”

Boaz came up and gave her another kiss, this one with more tongue. “I got a bedroom, ye know,” he told her. His breath, heavy and ragged, puffed against her mouth and nose, smelling like the wrong end of a distillery. “We can go up there.”

“Ugh,” she told him, wrinkling her nose. “You have dragon breath.” 

He blinked. “Dragon breath?” Palm up, he breathed into his hand and gasped in some clean air. “Ooogh, yer right. Peppermint mead, ye failed me again!” 

“ _Again?_ ” she chuckled. “What have you been up to with peppermint mead, Boaz?” What a weird conversation to have. What a weird time to make a joke, when her blood had all moved south and there were stars in her vision, she was sure of it. It had been such a long time since anyone had kissed her, much less like that. Since July. Since _Vince_.

Boaz had a bottle of peppermint schnapps. Why did he have peppermint schnapps? Had he gotten up and come back while her head was spinning? “All right,” he said, raising the bottle towards her in a toast position, “bottoms up!” In one fluid movement, he tilted the bottle back, gargled, and swallowed down his mouthful with a wince. “That’s strong!”

A weak laugh came up out of her throat. “How did that not just lyse open the tissues of…” she shook her head. “Okay, I’ve been listening to Bill too much.”

“Years of practice,” Boaz said, and exhaled loudly, his mouth wide open. “And I’ve got years of practice with this, too,” he added with a waggle of all ten fingers, “if y’ want to see if it makes perfect. If y’want, I mean.” He paused then, and scooted away from her, curling and shrinking into himself even as she watched. “Only if you _want_ , Dinah.” His eyes, lighter and brighter brown than her own, bored into hers. 

Her breath whistled into her lungs and came out a lot more shuddery than she’d intended. “Let’s go upstairs,” she told him. “We can start with that.” She shifted, and the wet fabric of her underwear clung to her vulva, a stark reminder. 

“A’right,” Boaz said gently. “We’ll go upstairs. Could watch a movie, if y’only want that.” He used his elbow to lever himself up over the couch armrest and pointed at Brian. “And sod off, Brian. We weren’t doin’ anything indecent.”

Brian _hmph_ ed. “Fine. I’ll read the newspaper on my phone, then, and I’ll hold down the fort until everyone gets back.”

“Ta,” said Boaz, obviously and pointedly ignoring Brian’s heavy sarcasm. Dinah smiled, and her smile grew when his fingers touched hers as they both got up. She was…buoyant. It had been a long time since she’d felt buoyant. How had she been living with such a heaviness on her head and shoulders for so long? 

When they reached the stairs, Boaz took her hand and _oh_ , his was so warm. Huge, strong, warm, with bony fingers covered in thick calluses. She knew where they had come from, too. Two months after the funeral, when the thought of spending one more day with Theo hovering around her had nearly turned her stir-crazy, Boaz had insisted that she do him the “huge feckin’ favor” of being his informal security detail, a job for which he paid her far too much under the table (despite the fact that Theo swore up and down that the skinheads had gone back to their grandmother’s house). Her hands had reddened and blistered when she carried even one crate more than the length of the store, but Boaz? Boaz could lift two with ease. 

“Bo!” And there was Benny coming out of his room in a voluminous pair of bright red swim trunks that clashed like a cymbal against his bright orange hair and bristly orange beard. “Bo, are you all right? Is Dinah all right?” He put a hand on his chin and leaned forward to peer at her. “Ye don’t look ill.”

“No, Benny,” she assured him, “I’m just really, ah. Tired.” She liked Benny, but there was a limit to how far her honesty went. “Boaz is helping me lie down, um, like Bram. Where’s Chava?”

Benny pointed down the hall. “Changin’ in the bathroom. Says she doesn’t want me seein’ her in the nothing until the relationship goes a bit farther.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “I can respect that.”

“So you’re waiting?” Dinah asked, trying not to stare at his nipples. They were huge and hairy, and to be honest, they were about as much of a splash of cold water as Brian’s voice. “That’s interesting.”

He nodded. “Oh, aye, ‘s’the way she grew up. Nothin’ wrong with it. Bo, I’ll tell ye when it’s time for the swim, shall I?”

“Sure, Ben,” Boaz said with a nod. “See you later. I’ve got to get Dee here into bed.”

Dinah winced at the wording, but to his credit, Benny at least acted like he hadn’t noticed. “Right!” he said cheerfully, and whistled his way down the hall into the stairwell. Boaz gave her a look she couldn’t decode, eyebrows wrinkled, and pulled her into his room by the hand. 

He’d barely gotten the door shut when Dinah had to collapse on the bed, laughing. The bed creaked and the walls rang with his laughter as he flopped down to join her. “Might – might make me a horrible wanker,” he gasped, “but Benny’s a real sight in a swimsuit!”

Dinah rolled over and hid her face in one of his pillows until the last of the giggles were out. It smelled sweet and musty, hair gel and shampoo and sweat. “It’s not that.” She lifted her face away reluctantly. “But…I don’t want to be mean, but how does Benny not have, like, every disease known to man?”

Boaz cocked his head at her. “How d’ye mean?”

“Well…” Another snort of laughter escaped her and she cupped her hands in front of her chest, helplessly shaking with it. “His boobs have boobs.”

“Ha! Aye, and quite a sight they are in the pool, too!” Boaz grinned, a flash of white teeth in the dark bedroom, and turned over on his belly to flip on the bedside lamp. “Nah, I tease, but it’s a hormone thing with him. Far as I know, it runs a fair bit back on Mam’s side.”

She maneuvered herself into a more comfortable position, propped up on an elbow with the side of her head resting against the scrunched-up pillow. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hm,” Boaz said. “He had to get treatment for it, actually. Surgery. It’s called Cushing’s syndrome.” He chuckled. “I remember it ‘cause it sounds like ‘cushion’, and that’s what he turned into. It was called a…oh, bugger, I should remember this, the name’s so weird. Ah!” He snapped his fingers. “Pituitary adenoma. Was makin’ one of his organs spit out steroids like mad.”

“Really?” She frowned. “Is he okay?”

Boaz nodded. “Oh, aye. Got the tumor out years ago. Now he’s just got to take cortisol and testosterone so his bones don’t turn into Swiss cheese, and I think that’s why he’s so hairy. I’m hairy, but not like that.”

 _How hairy?_ she almost blurted out, but swallowed hard instead. “So…he’s going to be okay?”

“Absolutely.” He reached across the space between them and took her hand again. “They do Bram’s therapy over at Brigham and Women’s in the city, so the docs look at Benny, too. They’re both goin’ to be fine.” A frown creased his thick black brows. “Are y’ really so worried about them?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Yeah, I’m okay.” Puppy face. First Vince, now Boaz; why was everyone she was even remotely interested in so good at the goddamn puppy face? 

Boaz’s hand squeezed hers, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles. “Want to talk?” he asked. “Or a hug or something? I was telling the truth, Dee, we haven’t got to do anything if ye don’t want. I know Vince is barely dead. It’s got to be insanely hard for you.”

“Yeah, I know.” She pulled on his hand. How did you explain that you wanted someone, but the idea of starting all over again, plus dealing with what everyone else was going to say, had you scared out of your mind? Boaz was possibly the most understanding person on the Eastern Seaboard, and she was still so…she didn’t know what. “Both is good. Can I be the little spoon?”

“Aye, sure,” Boaz said. He wriggled over to her and wrapped both arms around her waist, chin resting on her shoulder, the end of his ushanka and the messy ends of his hair tickling her face. “All right?” His minty breath blew over her cheek. 

Dinah sighed and settled back against him, and experimentally wiggled her ass. Yep, that was definitely a lump against it, and there was almost certainly not a sword in his pocket. Impressive, since whenever Vince had gotten to the noticeable-boner stage, he’d turned into a gibbering mess. “You know what’s the best thing about my brother being a historian?”

Boaz chuckled into her neck. “He can kick my arse about ten different ways instead of five? Swords and muskets?”

“Nah. I mean…well, yes,” she admitted, “but I mean he taught me a lot about what the Torah says about stuff. And in Biblical times, a woman was expected to mourn her husband for two months and then move on to someone else.”

Boaz’s breath caught palpably in his chest as his fingers stilled their idle movements on her stomach. “That was different,” he said. “She had to be married or she wasn’t worth bollocks for the rest of her life. No one expects ye to just…I don’t know, forget.”

“No,” she said, “I know.” Somehow it was easier to say this in the dark. So many poets had described darkness as a thick blanket, as a comforting cover, as a weight that opened mouths and loosened tongues like wine. They were right. “What I mean is there are provisions for moving on. They go all the way back to the beginning. I know Vince wouldn’t want me to brood.”

He sighed a deep sigh that made her back vibrate. “You haven’t got to justify yourself to me, Dee,” he told her. “No need to rush into anything.” 

Goddammit, he was getting entirely the wrong point from what she was trying to say. “I’m not telling you I’m trying to force myself to move on, Boaz,” Dinah said. Fucking gallants. “I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to feel bad about me wanting you.”

And for once in all the years she’d known him, save for a loud gulp, Boaz Budin was silent. 

Dinah let the silence go on for a couple of minutes before it bore down too heavily. “The Talmud also says that a man has to please his wife,” she said, “sexually, I mean. It was written that he had to make her come, or he was…you know, outsky.”

He sniggered. “And what happened if he didn’t, then? Divorce? Parade through the streets with his cock covered in unpleasant things?”

“I don’t know,” she said, a hand over Boaz’s to feel her heart rate go back down to non-nervous levels. “Public humiliation, probably. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Huh.” Boaz patted her stomach, then began to rub it slowly. “I have been told,” he said, something insouciant in his voice, “that I give an excellent mustache ride.”

A jolt between her legs, a renewed flood of wetness that made her squirm. “Mustache ride, huh?” She swallowed and flipped over in his arms to look him in the face. All she saw was dead seriousness. “What about you?” 

“Ah, I’ve got all the time in the world,” Boaz replied with a shrug and a wink. “And if y’don’t want to touch me, I’ve got two hands. Very skilled hands, I might add, if ye’ll let me brag a bit.”

“Hands,” Dinah repeated. There went her heart again at warp speed, flooding her vessels with blood. The space between them was suddenly too hot, nearly stifling. His breath touched her face again and again, in and out, and his gleaming eyes were focused on hers. “You, uh, mean you want to touch my…”

“Aye,” he whispered. “So much.”

He wasn’t kidding. God, no, he wasn’t, not unless she was hallucinating the lump against her thigh. “Then, uh,” she said, and cleared her throat, “if you want…” Fuck this society, where it probably would’ve felt easier and more natural for her to say ‘fuck me up the ass’ than ‘eat me out.’ “I’ll take a mustache ride.”

“Excellent choice,” said Boaz in a more normal tone, but his laugh was almost hysterical. Had he actually been afraid she was going to say no? “Fine choice. We’ve got a special today on mustache rides, you know. Two for one, limited time only.”

Dinah pushed away from him and leaned over him to the bedside table, searching around for the bedside lamp switch. “I really hope it’s not actually a limited time only offer,” she said, and switched the lamp on. Boaz squinted. “’Cause if this goes well…”

“Oh,” he said, and his voice was still small. “What’re the lights for, then?”

“Boaz?” She put her hand softly on his knee. This was such a weird reversal. Between them, he was usually the demonstrative one, the one who talked about his feelings. “If I’m gonna see you naked, I want to be able to appreciate it. Don’t know about you, but my night vision sucks.”

“Should’ve said so in the first place, then!” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he stroked his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. “Y’want to see me naked? I want to see _you_ naked.” He clapped his hands together, businesslike. “Right. Trousers off?”

Well, they definitely needed to come off anyway. Her crotch was swollen, the seam of her pants irritating her labia through her underpants. “Sure.” Slowly, she undid the button and slid down the zipper, then wiggled out of her pants and took her socks off while she was at it. 

“Jesus,” Boaz said, and whistled. “God, Dee, ‘s’grand, that is. You’re so _wet_.”

Grand? No way. She looked down the low hill of her belly for a once-over, but all she could see was the sparse edges of her pubic hair bushing out the leg holes of her underpants, nothing out of the ordinary unless pubic hair turned you off. Seemed like it didn’t turn Boaz off. “There’s nothing special there.”

He flopped onto his belly and wriggled close to her. “It’s grand because it’s yours, Dee, don’t be naff.” He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, deeply, his nostrils flaring outwards. “You smell feckin’ amazing. Does m’head in.” He took in another breath and licked his lips. 

“I shouldn’t be…what?” He talked about mustache rides like he enjoyed doing them, which would indicate that he’d done them plenty of times before, which would indicate that he was _good_ at them. Fuck, an expert was about to eat her out. Dinah bit the insides of her cheeks and rolled her hips to grind her clit on the fabric of her underpants as best she could. 

“Naff. Crazy. Take those off?” Boaz asked, and shimmied his hips. He must have been doing the same thing as she was. “I want to see ye.”

Easier said than done. The crotch of her underwear clung to every line, every wet surface, and it was heavy with arousal by the time she got it off. “I might…I might stain your bed,” she said. “If I put these on the – the bedspread. It’s not super nice or anything, is it?” 

Boaz shook his head hard. “Nah, throw ‘em anywhere.” His eyes never left her cunt. “Want a kiss first, or should I just, ah, go right in with m’tongue?”

“Kiss,” she said, almost before he’d finished his sentence. “Kiss. Please. And take your shirt off?” She pulled her own sweater over her head and unclasped her bra. There needed to be at least one moment of skin on skin for all of this to be _real_. “Then come up here and kiss me.”

“Aye. Absolutely.” He took off his shirt, a thin red waffle-weave thermal, then his undershirt. “A kiss, of course. Should’ve asked about that first.” 

Dinah smiled. “It’s okay.” She understood what it was like to be frazzled, probably better than he did. “Don’t beat yourself up, okay? Just get up here.”

“’Course. I’m on it.” On hands and knees, Boaz climbed up her with his limbs to either side of her body and kissed her hard. This time, she pulled off his _ridiculous_ fucking hat (it was only serving as more of a barrier between them) and shoved herself forward. Her breasts squashed against his chest, the skin tickled by his chest hair. “ _Dee_ ,” he moaned. 

“Yeah?” Dinah put her hands on his back and pulled him in closer. When he ground into her, she rubbed right back and extended her neck backwards to suck his lower lip into her mouth. He didn’t talk then, only cried out into her mouth and pressed his clothed dick between her legs. Her eyes squeezed shut in pleasure; the fabric was rough on her swollen clit, and it felt so fucking good. 

Over and over, she ground on his cock and let the roughness of the fabric propel her forward toward a climax even as it grew slicker and smoother with her own wetness. “Boaz,” she said, and repeated it over and over. “Boaz, fuck, fuck, Boaz, Boaz…”

Then he pushed her away and held her by the shoulders. “That’s _lovely_ ,” he said in a rough voice, “but I’d rather eat ye. Can I?” His tongue came out again and slickened his lips. “I bet y’taste as good as ye smell.”

Dinah pushed away from him instead of replying, drawing her knees up so that he could see her cunt as it spread apart. The wet flesh separated slickly, unevenly, the temperature of the air in his room enough to make her shiver. “Go ahead.” She leaned back on her elbows and craned her neck to see him. “Eat my pussy.”

“Gladly,” Boaz said. He scooted up to her on his belly and leaned his head in between her legs until all she could see was the top of his head, covered in truly terrible hat hair. But she could hear him just fine, and the long sniff he drew in was definitely appreciative. “God, now you smell even better.” 

“Yeah, it’s because I’m fucking _turned on_ ,” she told him. Her thighs had begun to tremble from the effort of holding their position while he just lay there and did _nothing_. He was supposed to be shoving his face in there and giving her that mustache ride he promised, not just looking. “Do it already!”

Boaz laughed, but said nothing. He tipped his head forward and the tip of his nose touched the very tip of her clit, making her gasp. His tongue ran down the space between her inner labia a moment later, wiggled a circle in the entrance to her vagina, and finally settled against her clit with thorough flicks up and down, left and right. 

It was amazing. It would have been perfect except for the flare of pain when he flicked up. “Hey,” she said, and surprised herself with how raspy her voice was, “don’t go up so hard. It, uh, _oh god_ , you’re going under the hood too hard.”

“Ach, sorry.” His voice rumbled against her, and he flicked his tongue slower and more experimentally. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Then he set to licking her again, but only for a fucking minute before he pulled away and said, “Can I put a finger in ye?”

Dinah grabbed his hair. If he thought this was a game, she wasn’t about to indulge him in playing around. “Yes, fine, but _get your mouth back down there_.” She was sopping, downright dripping wet, and although his tongue was wet and skilled, she knew most of it was from her arousal. 

“A’right.” He put his mouth back on her and slid a long finger inside her. Dinah jerked in place, but he didn’t start thrusting, only gently crooked the finger up and let his mouth do most of the grunt work on her clit. Every so often, he let out a pleased little grunt himself from deep in this throat. 

Vince, she found herself thinking, would have thrust if he was fingering her, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; it usually got her off with flying colors. This was…different. Really good different. And – “Shit!” Her vagina clenched involuntarily around his finger when the flat of his tongue rubbed her whole clit from the top of the hood to its root. “Keep going!” Pleasure swelled below her navel, and she knew that if he kept doing that, she would come really, _really_ soon. 

Boaz’s moan was long and lingering this time. Dinah frowned – was that a pleasurable moan, or a pained one? “I mean…you can stop, if you’re sore.”

“Nuh-mm,” Boaz said, shaking his head. She wasn’t sure exactly what he was trying to say – no way? Nah, I’m good? - but he started licking her even harder and with more enthusiasm. She cried out, spread her legs as wide as she could, and thrust her pelvis forward so that her clit was entirely in his mouth. Apparently getting the hint, he opened his mouth and started to suck her clit with lips and tongue. 

Dinah squeezed her eyes shut and let her thighs shake, too close to let herself keep worrying about whether or not she was shaking his head. Another sucking lick, and another, and she gritted her teeth with a squeak when he licked her over the edge and she came into his mouth. He kept sucking, though, and licking, and what felt like seconds later, he scraped his teeth downward over her clit with the lightest pressure possible and she fell apart all over again into another climax. 

There could have been another – she felt it in her – but he drew back and wiped his mouth. The first sight of his face since before he’d plunged into the land down under revealed that he was shiny from nose to chin and grinning from ear to ear. “That was _brilliant_ ,” he said. “Shite, Deedee, I nearly came in m’trou.”

She thonked her head back against the pillow. “Don’t call me Deedee.” 

“Boaz?” There was a knock on the bedroom door, and Boaz’s mouth, open to reply, snapped shut. “Bo, everyone’s been waitin’ with their suits and all. Are ye goin’ to come to the polar bear swim or not?”

“Oh, God.” Boaz dropped his head down and hid his face in the comforter. “Sod off, Benny!”

There was a moment of silence before Benny laughed. “I’m guessin’ Dinah’s in there with you? And she’s not up for the swim, either?”

“Benny, Jaysus _Christ_ , get downstairs and quit botherin’ me or I’m gonna lamp yer face,” Boaz said in a measured tone (although the blankets muffled most of its intent, so Dinah couldn’t be quite sure). “She’s busy, a’right? We’re busy.”

The silence stretched out long enough to be stalely uncomfortable this time. “Ooh, lovely,” Benny finally said, and he sounded like he was genuinely delighted. “I’ll tell the lads their mam’s ill, shall I? Bit of a cold or something. They haven’t got to know the truth.”

Was he ever going to go away? “That’s fine, Benny,” Dinah said. “Sorry I made you guys wait. I’m not in any shape to go down there.” Her breath was still heavy from sex, but she thought enough time had passed that she didn’t sound outright indecent. 

“Understood –“

“Benny!” Boaz shouted. “I said sod off! How many times have I got to say it?”

“I’m going, I’m going!” Benny exclaimed, very clearly matching his tone to Boaz’s. “Ach, look who thinks so much of himself. I’ll see the both of ye later.” A few footsteps, then his voice again. “I forgot. Dee? If y’want to stay, should I get Danny to take your boys for the night?”

“Please,” she said. 

“All right, _now_ I’m off.” 

Boaz lifted his head off the bed and waited with a comically intent expression, only blowing out his breath after Benny’s footsteps had faded and there was only silence in the hall. “Sorry,” he said. “Feck, sorry. Sorry, sorry, Dee. Agh.” He rested his forehead on her belly and poked his tongue into her navel. “There goes my stiffy.”

Dinah squeaked and curled up, away from the tongue. “We can help bring it back, you know,” she said, looking at Boaz from under the curve of a protecting arm. “You’re not the only one here who’s good with their hands. Or mouth.” Even before Vince died, though, it had been a while since she’d given a blowjob. If he decided he wanted that, she _really_ hoped her technique wasn’t rusty enough that she accidentally chomped down on his dick. Experimentally, she rounded her lips and satisfied herself that yes, she did remember how to do it. 

Boaz perked up immediately, with even the ends of his long, disheveled hair seeming to stir with energy. Momentary jealousy flashed through her; with her curls, if she left her hair long and disarrayed like that, it would tangle up in seconds. Boaz’s hair, however, felt like silk. “I won’t say no to gettin’ off,” he said. 

She slowly uncurled and smiled at him. “Pick your poison, then,” she told him. “Hands? Mouth? If you’ve got condoms, we can fuck, but I like weird positions. So if that’s not your thing, just letting you know.”

“What sorts o’ weird positions?” Boaz asked, cocking his head. A few locks of hair fell forward over his shoulders and his bangs flopped into his eyes. “I’m a bit flexible, but nothin’ ridiculous. I can’t fuck y’ on the ceiling. Floor’s fine, though, I can definitely fuck on the floor.”

“Jesus, no, not the ceiling,” Dinah said through a soft laugh. “You, um, you remember how we spooned earlier?”

He nodded, and his hair and mustache wagged with the gesture. “I liked that. You like spoonin’?”

Dinah closed her eyes, feeling her face and neck go warm. It might have been routine to others (her self-declared “Slut of Boston” brother being one of them), but disclosing favorite sex positions with a former partner to a new one was not something she was accustomed to doing. Pathetic, maybe, for a thirty-four-year-old. “Vince would spoon me and, uh, he’d put his cock in me from behind. We sort of slid back and forth to fuck, um, kind of slowly. That was my favorite.”

“Oh.” Boaz looked down at his crotch. The wet spot she’d left, Dinah noticed, had dried into a visibly stiff area of fabric – she’d left her mark on him. A throb surprised her between her legs. “There we go, the old stiffy’s back online.” He looked up and winked at her. “That’s fine with me, if ye want to do that. If it’ll bring back bad memories or anything, we can do something else, though.”

She sucked both lips into her mouth and sighed. He was way too nice of a guy to not know about her issues, that he was only her second partner ever, that even mentioning a sex position she’d done with Vince without bursting into tears was a triumph. “I don’t know. It might.” She put out her elbow and rested her chin on her palm. “Boaz, I was never with anyone else except Vince.”

“No one?” Boaz asked. His eyes went wide and his mouth opened just a little. Dinah supposed she should probably thank her lucky stars he wasn’t going for the full-on jaw drop like it was the most surprising news in the world. “But you’re gorgeous! Y’ought to have got tons of offers. People should’ve been outside your door with flowers…are uni students just complete eejits here?”

“No, people offered.” Her face went hot again. There had been a guy who wanted a threesome with her and Vince, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was probably a walking STD, they would’ve been seriously tempted. “Vince just…I was happy with him. He was the love of my life.” Was that rude to say to someone who’d just mouth-banged you? Probably. Fuck. “So, uh.” Her vision swam before her, and she ran a hand across her eyes. “That’s what happened.”

Boaz blinked, first just a few times and then quickly, his eyes wet and bright. What the hell? Had her pathetic life story actually made him _cry?_ The thought was so ridiculous that her own tears dried up. “Sorry – Sorry, Dee,” he stammered, thick-voiced. “I’m…you…I knew that. I knew he was th-the love of your life. Only it’s feckin’ sad, what happened t’ye. And I’m tryin’ to move in on that.”

“Jeez, Boaz.” Her heart squeezed hard in her chest. Just her luck to get with first one, then two sensitive guys who made her feel shit. Why couldn’t she be sexually attracted to Neanderthals who guzzled their beer instead of appreciating it? “I did my crying. You don’t need to.”

He shook his head, pulling her into his arms again. They were face-to-face again, his arm settling around her waist. She put both of her arms around his and shifted, resting her hip against his belly. “I don’t want to move in on bein’ the love of your life,” he said. “It’s not my place. But I could…love you, if we keep up at this. It’s not out o’ the realm of possibility.”

“I understand,” Dinah said, and rested her forehead on his, on his warm, sweaty skin. From this vantage point, his eyes blurred into one big eye before her. “Want a hand job?” She shouldn’t have offered to fully bang him in the first place, she realized. Her cunt was swollen and sticky, which wasn’t a bad thing, but that would probably make her sore if he put his dick in her. “Or I could blow – what the _hell_ is that noise?”

Boaz laughed and pointed at the window. The yelp she’d heard came again, this time paired with a hoot in a different voice. “That’s the polar bear swim. Best I can guess, it’s either Gad or one of your sons on the Slip’n’Slide.”

“If those are your options,” she said, “then it’s Gad.” The scream didn’t sound anything like either of her kids. “What a wuss.” Especially for a man with that much body hair. Why’d he grow it out if not to keep himself warm, like some kind of big, red bear? “What was I saying?”

“Well, before the screamin’ started, ye offered me sexual services.” Red blotches appeared on Boaz’s cheeks. “Y’don’t have to, ye know.”

 _For fuck’s sake._ Dinah rolled her eyes. Boaz was so fucking noble that it made her want to throw something. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to do it,” she said, and just to make sure she got her point across, she reached down between them into his pants and grabbed his dick. Boaz drew in a high, shaky breath. “Is my hand okay?”

“Hand’s fine. Oh, _feck_.” Boaz’s hips squirmed and he thrust them forward to push his cock into her hand. She rubbed the tip and watched his eyes slit shut. “Mmmmm…magic hands.”

Dinah gulped and pressed her thighs together. _He’s at my mercy._ “My turn to make you come,” she said, and was surprised when her voice came out far steadier and, dared she say, sexier than she’d thought it would. “Pants off, Boaz.”

In an acrobatic feat worthy of Cirque du Soleil, Boaz contorted his upper body to slide out of his pants and boxers, while still lying down, in about three seconds. His thick red cock stood up from the patch of thick black hair that continued as an inch-thick treasure trail up to his belly button. “To your satisfaction, Dee?”

She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward to inspect the head of his cock instead of replying. Could it be? She didn’t have a lot of experience with dicks, but it looked like… “Are you uncircumcised, Boaz?”

“Partly circumcised, I’ll have ye know,” Boaz said, although his voice was still too strained to sound as insouciant as he probably wanted to. “Benny is, too. Bram’s cut all the way. M’parents wanted to do the traditional thing, but they didn’t want to, uh, make us all bald. Bad for the sensation, ye know.”

“Huh. Interesting.” Dinah pushed her forefinger across the foreskin gently to make it retract. Boaz’s eyes squinched shut and his entire dick quivered, and as the foreskin retracted, she saw moisture gleaming at the slit. “Wow. You’re kind of purple under there.”

His hips pumped up and down, although he was clearly restraining himself; tremors ran down both his hips and his clenched forearms, where the tendons and veins stood out all the way to his fists. “Mucous membranes,” he ground out. “S’that what it’s called?” She rubbed the head again, and he hissed. “Dee. Gonna come in yer hand.”

Dinah smiled at him. Vince used to warn her like that, once he got past the phase that she’d shouted at Theo for referencing during the funeral. “Lie down, Bo,” she said. “I’m going to get you off.” The entire space between her legs, from clit to vagina, felt swollen with lingering arousal, and she could feel wetness trickle down onto one of her inner thighs. 

“Mmm,” Boaz said, closing his eyes as he obeyed. Another scream came from outside, and he smiled. “Hope that doesn’t spoil it.” 

She lay down by his side and sprawled her arm over the bony crest of his hip, an easy reach to his erection. “Nah, shouldn’t.” It might have been nicer to give him some warning, but she was a fucking Derensky and she was tired of mating dances – it was time to mate. She closed her fingers around the shaft of his cock and began to stroke him. 

“ _Fuck!_ ” Boaz cried out, and squirmed again, with his whole body now. It was just as endearing as it was fucking hot. She watched his face and tried a few different strokes, first just up and down with her fist and then up the underside with the pad of her thumb. “Dee…Deedee…” Okay, so that one was a win. The head of his cock shone, fully retracted from the half-a-foreskin he had left. It was a pretty sight, so in appreciation, she brought her free arm from under her, wet the pad of her thumb in his moisture, and rubbed it in a circle over the glans. 

Sweat ran down Boaz’s face. From that alone, Dinah would have guessed that he was about to come, but just to be on the safe side, she swung her cramping arm down lower and massaged his balls in her palm. They were tight against his body, even hairier than the rest of him, and she made sure to give them love. 

“Oh god,” Boaz gasped, “oh god oh god oh,” and his voice cracked a scream in half as he came over her hand and wrist. She let him ride it out, shivering, so hot for him she couldn’t even think anymore. When he slumped on the pillows with a whimper, she cuddled up to him, and even though he looked like he was way too tired to do anything but lie there, he grabbed her and kissed her hard. 

For her part, Dinah was definitely too tired to grab his hair and kiss him for all she was worth again, so she let him take the lead now. “Wow,” she whispered when he took his lips away from hers for more than half a second. “You’re really hot when you come, Boaz.” 

“Same…same t’you,” Boaz said. “Sorry, was that too intense?”

“Kind of. Want to just cuddle or something?”

“Aye,” he replied, “gladly.” With two people’s worth of tired limbs, it took a lot of clumsy maneuvering, but she ended up with her head on his chest and one of her legs thrown over both of his, one of his hands stroking through her hair. He smelled like sweat, but it wasn’t a terrible smell. Must’ve been he used a good deodorant. 

“You think they’re done with the polar bear swim?” she asked. While she wasn’t sure, she thought that the crowd might have moved inside, since there were no more screams. She couldn’t hear any chatter from downstairs, either, so some people might have left. “What time is it, anyway?” As she said it, she remembered that he had a clock radio on the bedside table and she could easily look herself, but hooray for being fucking lazy. 

Boaz levered himself up and looked over her head. “Eleven fifty-seven,” he said. “Oi! We can watch the ball drop if ye want. I was afraid we were going to miss it.”

“I think I already watched two balls drop tonight,” Dinah said, and listened to Boaz actually _giggle_ while he settled the two of them back into position. “You got the remote?”

“Sure, just a mo.” He rolled over, stretched out an arm with a grunt, and snagged the remote from where it lay next to the alarm clock. “Not how ye expected to spend New Year’s, is it?” he asked, turning the TV on. “In bed with a good-for-nothin’ drink seller.”

She put her head on his shoulder to watch the proceedings in Times Square after he found the right channel. “You’re not a good-for-nothing, Bo.” 

“So ye say.”

“So I know.” 

Boaz wound his fingers through a few locks of her hair and sighed, then kissed the top of her head. The tips of his mustache drooped onto her forehead. “I still don’t know what y’see in me, ye know,” he said after a pause. “Not goin’ to complain, though. But…Dee?”

“Mm?” she said. His head-and-hair massage was in danger of turning her into sleepy jelly, and she could already feel her eyelids drooping shut. “Yeah, Bo?”

He pressed another kiss to the top of her head. “Can we do that again sometime? Maybe with a movie? A proper one, I mean, not popcorn on my couch with Bram fartin’ the whole time. A proper movie and dinner. I’ll pay.”

That pleading note in his voice was going to break her heart, see if it didn’t. Dinah leaned her head back, extending her neck enough to press her lips against his for a lingering kiss. He responded very enthusiastically, although the fact that her head was almost upside down meant that the time she could spend kissing him was limited. “Pizza,” she said, breaking away. “And I want to see that Jack Ryan movie. Chris Pine is hot.”

Boaz made a face, which looked very strange in her peripheral vision. “Blonds?”

“Yeah, on the silver screen. Now shut up, the ball’s dropping.” 

Boaz obeyed, except to count down “ten, nine, eight” with her and everyone else on TV, and as soon as the ball touched down at the bottom of its descent, he grabbed her face and kissed her again. “Happy New Year,” he said, rubbing his nose against hers. “Ach, that’s adorable. Your whole face wrinkled.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, and was interrupted by another knock on the door. “Fuck, who is it now?”

“Mom?”

Oh, _fuck_. “Hi, Caleb,” she said. “What’s wrong, hon? Did you get hurt on the Slip’n’Slide?”

“No, I’m okay. Mom, Phil said you and Boaz are dating. Are you dating? Is that why you’re in his room?”

Dinah’s mouth fell open. She looked at Boaz, who looked back at her with a helpless expression as if to say she was on her own. “Yeah, Caley, we’re dating.” She heard the words come out of her mouth, but she didn’t remember lining them up in her head. “I’m dating Boaz. Boaz and I are dating. Is that okay with you?”

Caleb audibly blew out his breath, just like his dad. Dinah’s heart twinged. “Phil’s mad, but he’s a jerk,” he said. “And he’s always mad. I like Boaz.”

“I like you, too, mate,” Boaz said. His eyes were gleaming bright again. “Happy New Year t’you. Mind leaving yer mam and me alone? She’s got to get a good night’s sleep.”

In the silence that followed, Dinah suspected Caleb was making a face. “I know you’re doing sex ed stuff,” he said, tone accusatory. “Benny said Phil and I need to spend the night with Danny. Can you tell Danny it’s okay for me to eat sugar? He thinks it’s not okay for me to eat sugar.”

“Tell him I said you can eat sugar,” she told him, “and your uncle’s a horrible person for lying to him.” No one else but Theo would pull that kind of monkey business just to get one over on his nephews. “Happy New Year, Caley.”

“Happy New Year, Mom.” 

He was getting so big. So mature. Tears stung Dinah’s eyes. “I love you, sweetie,” she said. “Now go downstairs, please. I’ll see you in the morning, bright and early. You won’t have to suffer through Danny all day.”

Caleb made a kissing noise, probably blowing one at the door, as was his habit when she had tucked him into bed and was leaving his room. “Love you, too, Mom. See you in the morning.”

He left, and all of a sudden, Dinah felt exhausted. Maybe it was just the adrenaline wearing off, but her belly throbbed with a post-sex ache and she could barely keep her eyes open. “I want to sleep, Boaz. That okay with you?” 

Boaz picked up the remote again and turned the TV off, then turned the lamp off, too, and she didn’t even have to ask. Wow. “Absolutely okay,” he said. “I’ll have a kip with you. Want the blankets on or off?” 

She yawned. “On.” Firm pressure always helped her sleep better. These days, she wrapped herself in both Vince’s half of the blankets and hers to keep the horribly cold winter nights away. Boaz was a furnace, though, so she probably wouldn’t need to do that here. 

The springs creaked as Boaz cuddled up behind her. He pulled the blankets up over both of them and put his arms around her waist again, as fluid and natural as though they’d done it for years. “Happy New Year’s, Dee,” he said into her hair. 

In the dark, Dinah smiled. “You said that already.”

“Sayin’ it again.” He was quiet for a long time after that, long enough for her to feel like she was sinking into the center of the bed like it was a bath. “Love ye, Dee,” he said, so quietly that maybe she’d imagined it, and she knew that he thought she was too far into sleep to hear. 

She couldn’t say it yet. Maybe someday she would say it back, watch his face light up and his eyes crinkle into that softly happy expression she knew so well. Tonight, she couldn’t, but she burrowed into the pillow and fell asleep with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boaz and Benny were born into a family of mixed religious heritage, both of them after 1975. In addition, circumcision has never been as common in Europe as it is in the US. There's precedent for partial circumcision even in ancient Judaism, and it's very likely that in an Irish family like theirs, it would have been seen as a good compromise. 
> 
> Glossary of Boaz's North Irish Jargon  
>  _Does my head in:_ drives me crazy  
>  _Lamp:_ punch  
>  _Eejit:_ idiot, moron


	14. For Lo, the Winter is Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new person enters the lives of everyone in the Hillel family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for birth stuff and potty-mouthed kids.

This was a terrible idea. Sima’s brain knew it was terrible, her heart knew it was terrible, and the radiating pain in her lower back that had been going on since the early morning was probably trying to tell her that it was a terrible idea, too. But Theo Derensky had been planning this trip to the Village ever since he found out when this year’s spring break was for the local public schools, and Galil was getting serious cabin fever sitting around the house with her while Gad worked. If her OB found out that she violated the bed-rest order, well, she could just scold her later. 

She pushed the palm of one hand into the small of her back to try to massage the pain away and, spread-legged, waddled from her seat in the kitchen to the mudroom where Galil was dawdling. “ _Khamudi, Aba_ and Uncle Omer are waiting in the car,” she said. “Hurry up.” 

Galil, seated on his usual stepstool, paused in pulling his shoelaces through the hooks on his winter boots and looked up at her. His cheeks were flushed beneath his colorfully-striped knit hat. “ _Zeh b’seder, Ima_. I’m almost done,” he replied, a little shamefaced. “Sorry. I can’t tie these boots so great.”

Sima shook her head. “It’s okay. You can do them again later if they fall apart.” If her belly weren’t so huge, she would kneel down and do them for him, but she’d probably fall over headfirst if she tried with the current state of things. “Come on, _motek_ , single knots. They’ve been waiting for five minutes.”

Galil bit down on his lower lip, brow furrowed, and hurriedly tied clumsily-looped knots in his shoelaces that would probably fall apart within half an hour. No matter. At the Village, there would be plenty of people without huge, pregnant bellies who could bend down and redo them for him. “Okay, _Ima_.” He stood up and bounced on his booted toes. “I’m ready.”

“ _B’seder. B’vakasha_ , get the door? I can’t lift anything right now.”

Galil nodded and sprang up, then ran to the front door with his boots clumping (yeah, she _knew_ they were still way too big for him). She followed him as quickly as she could, which with the pain in her back sending heavy spikes down to the top of her rear end and her upper thighs, wasn’t very fast. Thank God she already had her stuff on, because Gad and Omer weren’t exactly patient people. 

Gad laid on the horn and rolled down the car window as soon as they came through the front door, even before it was closed. “What took you?” he called, leaning over to the passenger-side window. “Are you two okay?”

Galil hung his head. Sima patted it and slammed the door shut with the force she wished she could employ on Gad’s stupid head. He _knew_ Galil still had trouble tying those damn boots. “Nothing’s wrong.” She turned the key in the lock and started down the half-frozen walk, gleaming with irregular patches of ice, as slowly and carefully as she could. A fall, that was one more thing she didn’t need. Galil scampered up, first behind her and then in front of her, and was in the car long enough to have buckled in already before she even reached it. 

“Wait,” Gad said when she opened the passenger-side door, “no, you need to sit in the back seat.”

Sima put a hand on her hip and gave him her best ‘are you shrooming?’ look. “Gadi, our son and your brother are already back there. You want to squeeze a balloon belly in, too?”

His nostrils flared as he let out an irritated huff. “Sima, _gevalt_ , it’s the balloon belly I’m worried about. Please, just sit in the back? You’re letting the cold in.”

Her breath was already forming an uncomfortably-icy wet crust on her scarf, although it would be a cold day in hell before she told him he was right. “Fine.” She closed the front car door and opened the door to the back, where thankfully, Galil had taken the middle seat. “Galli,” she said, “move over a little, please.”

“Uh-huh, Ima.” Galil wiggled his butt back towards his uncle, eliciting a grunt from Omer that sounded none too pleased. Well, Gad could deal with it. Sima slid in, slammed the door, and contorted over her belly with a wince when another cramp squeezed her back. The seatbelt barely fit over her. 

She saw Gad’s eyes flick towards her in the rearview mirror as he drove away from the curb. “Are you okay, Sima?”

“Yes,” she sighed, moving both of her hands to cup her belly below her navel. It was too hot in the car, and she could already smell that Omer was wearing his Depends today instead of chancing underwear with his prostatitis issues. Great. Nausea hadn’t been a huge issue with this pregnancy, but her stomach definitely lurched now, and she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to have to listen to the usual concerned questions, and she wished she’d decided to just stay in bed. The kid was supposed to come in a few days anyway, if the due date the doctor gave her was correct, and another back cramp made her suspect that the baby was angry at her for walking so much. 

“Okay,” Gad said. He sounded like he didn’t believe her one bit, but he didn’t press her on it. She heard the turn signal flip on. “Omer, what’s new in the world of sitting at the computer all day?”

Sima smiled, her eyes still closed. With his lingering PTSD, Omer hadn’t had a full-time job in years; Gad understood, and she knew he would never seriously berate his brother for only spending three days a week at the local library, but dear God, did the two of them ever rib each other for things like this. Likewise, Omer got on Gad’s case about being “boring,” and then the two of them usually made up over a bag of chips and some TV show. 

The trip to the Village took more than half an hour by Sima’s estimate, although she wasn’t going to open her eyes and check, and Gad swore the whole time whenever the GPS took them somewhere unfamiliar. Galil fell asleep against her at one point, with his head leaning against her arm. She petted his head with the palm of one hand and let him stay where he was, since at least he wasn’t snoring as hard as his uncle had started to do ten minutes into the drive. 

Finally, the car jerked to a stop and Sima opened her eyes. They were in one of the biggest parking lots she’d ever seen, and a massive fence that looked like it was made of sharpened logs that had been stood on end loomed up past the cars. “Wow,” she said through a yawn, “can’t believe I’ve never been here. Kind of touristy, huh?”

“I’ve been, _Ima_ ,” Galil put in. “Remember? Last year, _hayiti v’kitah gimel, hayah harbeh_ field trips, and we came here. You had to do the permission slip.”

She chuckled a little and her back cramped hard. This time, the pain squeezed around to the base of her belly and it was the hardest thing in the world to keep from whimpering. _Just a few hours_ , she thought. In a few hours, she’d be back at home and she could tell Gad that it was probably time to call someone. For now, her family had given up enough to worry about her and she wasn’t about to ruin it. 

Gad got out of the front seat and came around to open both of the back doors. “Doing okay, _yafati?_ ” he asked in a low voice as Omer and Gad got out of the other side of the car. “You don’t look so good.”

Sima shook her head and pushed herself up until she was standing outside the car. It hadn’t even been this hard to move around with her first pregnancy, and Galil had been what Gad still called a ‘mammoth’ when he was born. She’d taken easy movement for granted up until now, for sure. “I’m fine, Gadi.” She rubbed the small of her back with both hands. “Just tired from all this lugging. Where did Theo say he’d meet us?”

“Theo isn’t.” Gad took her hand, then whipped around. “Galil!” he shouted. “No running ahead! Stay with _Ima_ and me.” He shook his head. “That kid. _Hatinok shelanu_ , nu?”

“ _Lo tinok_. Not anymore.” She was glad of the support as they started walking across the length of the parking lot. “He’s ten.” Galil trotted back to her side and she took his hand with her free one. “How’s the weather over there, Galli?”

“Cold.” Galil stuck his hands into his coat sleeves. “I don’t think it’ll ever warm up, _Ima_.”

Gad took Galil’s other hand, his palm alone practically swallowing up Galil’s fingers, while Omer strode alongside them. He was usually slower than Sima, but compared to her now, he was practically a racecar. “Bill’s showing us around. Theo said he offered, but I don’t think he went willingly.”

“What makes you say that?” Sima stepped to the side to avoid a patch of ice. 

Gad made a farting noise between his lips. “Bill’s the Britiot, _yafati_. He does host stuff at his own house. Being a tour guide’s just embarrassing – I wouldn’t do it.”

They came to a gap in the fence, occupied by a ticket booth. “I didn’t know we had to pay for this,” Sima said. “I didn’t bring any cash, Gad. Omer, do you have any? I’ll pay you back.”

Omer shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sima. I don’t carry it. They’re probably not too old-fashioned to take credit cards.”

“ _Ima?_ ” Galil squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to pay. They just want _tzedakah_. I think I have a dollar.” He put a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up bill, which she suspected had been sitting in there for longer than she’d been pregnant. “You can use that.”

Sima bent down as far as she could, which was just far enough to kiss the top of his head. “No, Galli, you keep that.” She gave an apologetic smile to the teenage girl sitting in the ticket booth. “We’ll give you a double donation next time. I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s okay,” said the girl. Oh, good, so they didn’t make the money-handlers do the colonial mannerisms – that was a relief. Sima might not have been to this particular reenactment village, but she’d been to a few in her lifetime and listening to the reenactors stay in character could get very old, very fast. “Like you said, next time.”

“Thanks a lot,” Gad told her. He pulled out his phone and swiped his finger a few times across the screen. “Would you mind telling us how to get to the, uh…animal barns?” 

Someone tapped Sima’s shoulder before the girl could say anything. It was Boaz, in his ubiquitous hat that was, for once, suited for the weather. “You lot got here before us!” he exclaimed. His cheeks were colored with splotches of red as bright and round as a doll’s, and his breath came out in white puffs. “Now we’ve just got to wait to meet up with Noah and the Feldmans.”

“That sounds like a band name,” said Phil, who was standing behind Boaz with Dinah and Caleb. Both of the boys were bundled up in enough pieces of brightly-colored winter clothing that their skinny bodies looked almost fat. “Noah and the Feldmans. Right, Mom?”

“Nuh-uh, it’s Feld _men_ ,” said Caleb. “That’s grammatically correct.” Ah, the smugness of the eleven-year-old who knew what a plural was. Sima remembered those times. She’d corrected her friends on how to write in slippery, angular Hebrew cursive, though, her best subject. She wrote in it less and less now that computers existed and Galil came home speaking English most of the time, and she missed it. The language in their house had shifted more and more American since Galil went to school. 

Boaz patted Phil on the back. “And Benny and the Budins, I’d wager!” he said. 

“Where _is_ Benny?” Omer said. “With the girlfriend?”

“Nah, mindin’ the store. He said I’ve got to bring him in six months or he’s shavin’ me while I sleep, though.” Boaz flicked one of his pigtail braids over his shoulder. “Benny likes this shite. Sorry, _stuff_.” He shot a fast look over to first Phil and Caleb, then Galil. “Got to watch the mouth.”

Dinah snorted as she huddled in closer to Boaz. “You’re the least of their worries. Noah and Dwight are here.” She pointed a mittened hand towards the parking lot, where two figures, unmistakably Brian and Dwight, were walking towards them. Noah, of course, was running. If he was enough of an idiot to run in an icy parking lot, she decided, she wasn’t going to give him a Band-Aid. 

He didn’t fall, though (which was more than slightly disappointing), and the three of them soon reached the group at large. “Sorry – sorry we couldn’t bring Oreet,” Noah panted. “It’s not her spring break yet.”

“And Danny’s at work,” Dwight said. “Otherwise…Boaz, is Bram coming?”

“No, he’s not fond.”

Sima thought she heard Brian mumble a sardonic “Who would be?” under his breath. With the ache in her back, she was inclined to agree with him; otherwise, she thought this trip would be a lot more enjoyable. She hadn’t cramped up again yet, which meant that she was still irregular and at least made her think that actual labor would hold off a while longer. 

“ _Aba_ , you said we’re supposed to go to the animal barns,” Galil said, breaking the few seconds’ silence that ensued after. “I think I know where it is.”

“You think,” Omer said, “or you know? Your mother can’t wander around getting lost, Galli. It’s not good for her.”

Galil’s stubborn little mouth tightened. “I can find it!” he insisted. “I won’t make _Ima_ get lost.”

“Well…” Her husband pulled out his phone again and glanced at it. “Bill said to meet him there at eleven. It’s ten-fifty. I guess we have time, just in case Galli isn’t a hundred percent sure where it is.”

“I’m sure, _Aba_. I’ve been here before.” Galil crossed his arms, which impressed Sima, since they were covered in multiple layers of chunky winter wear and she didn’t think she would have been able to get her arms under each other in that scenario. “C’mon, let’s go! I’ll show you where the barn is. They have lots of sheep.”

“I like sheep,” Caleb volunteered. “They’re really soft.”

Gad raised his eyebrows and his shoulders in an ‘okay, then’ sort of shrug. “Let’s go find Bill.”

It turned out that Galil knew his stuff. Lexington Village, as far as Sima could tell under the cover of snow that had covered everything pretty much constantly since November, was laid out in straight lines around a town square – with a set of stocks in it, no less – that could easily have passed for the center of a real colonial village. As they walked, Galil pointed out everything that he could remember about every building that they passed (“that’s where they do the dyes and it’s really smelly in there”), which got Phil and Caleb grumbling, but at least that was all they did. Sima still didn’t trust them alone with Galil on her watch. 

The animal barn was a lot more picturesque than she’d thought it would be. The typical American barn, with its red sides and shingled roof, was sort of boring to her, but this building was made half of light-colored stone and half of wood. Triangular blocks of mortared stone pieces buttressed it on either side, and the roof was thatched. “Not bad,” Boaz said with an appreciative whistle. “Pretty, that. I could almost be back in Ireland.”

“I can smell the sheep,” said Phil. For once, he actually sounded curious rather than sulky. “They smell like Bill’s sweaters!”

“Yes,” Sima told him, “that’s called lanolin. It’s an oil that they have in their wool.” She could smell it, too, although it might have been pregnancy nose. She had always loved the smell of wool; it didn’t smell like an animal, per se, just earthy. 

Galil tugged on the edge of her coat, and for a second, she thought she could hear the zipper groan. Next time (and this was purely theoretical, since _no way_ did she plan on getting pregnant again), she was leaving the thing open, cold be damned. “Let’s go in, _Ima!_ I want to see the goats. And the pigs.”

“You failed, Sima,” Noah said, his tone light. “He’s gone over to the trayf side.”

“Whose fault do you think that is?” Dwight asked, and Sima looked in his direction just in time to see him lightly tap the top of Noah’s Mohawk. 

Noah yelped. “Hey! Don’t noogie me!” he said. “If anything, it’s _your_ influence. You’re the one who eats bacon for breakfast. I want to make you omelets, but _no_ , gotta get that cholesterol sky-high first, right?”

Dwight snorted, messing up Noah’s hair even more with both of his hands. “You’re the one who eats caramels in bed when you think I’m asleep.”

Noah’s expression turned horrified, although Sima was pretty sure it was mostly affected. “You know about the caramels?”

“You get the sheets sticky.”

“I bet they’re sticky ‘cause he pees the bed,” Caleb volunteered. Sima couldn’t help a smile. Of the two Adler-Derensky kids, she held far less of a grudge towards him. At least he’d made an attempt to publicly apologize. 

“Okay.” Dinah elbowed her way past Sima with a mumbled apology and stood at the front of their procession. “We’re stopping this conversation before it goes any farther. I’m sure Bill’s waiting for us very patiently.”

Another cramp was building its way to full pain in Sima’s back and belly. She winced and hissed through her teeth as slowly and quietly as she could. _God, why now? Why today?_ She wasn’t due for another few days, so why the hell did this baby have to choose today to make its appearance? 

Although it took biting down on the soft, tender inside of her lower lip hard enough to shred the skin, she managed to keep quiet long enough for the cramp to at least stop getting worse, and for all of them to get into the barn. Inside, the animals were separated into stalls of one or two with low walls of the same mortared stone chunks as the outside of the barn, each stall closed with a simple wooden gate. “Wow,” she heard Caleb gasp. “Look at all the sheep, Mom! And look, there’s some pigs!”

Both Galil and Phil simultaneously began to make oinking noises, which Sima stopped with a hand on Galil’s shoulder and a murmured “Knock it off.” The grunts and oinks of the actual animals in here were starting to make her head ache already, which she really didn’t need on top of early fucking _labor_. “Where’s Bill?”

“Here.” The bright torches (which were probably historically accurate, just like everything else at this kitschy place) showed Bill’s face in stark light as he stood up from the space next to a stall divider. “Oh, you’ve all made it!” He smiled from ear to ear and trotted over to them. “Sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t hear you come in.”

Boaz pointed. “What are you wearin’, Bill? Don’t tell me they’ve got ye in costume, too!”

Bill dropped his eyes down to his feet, which were indeed clad in rough leather shoes with irregular holes punched through for thick laces. “Oh. Um, yeah, that was a bit of a condition. I couldn’t give you all a tour without putting a costume on. I really hoped they didn’t have one in my size, but…”

Gad finished his sentence for him by pulling out his phone and snapping a photo. “Excellent,” he said, looking at his screen with an expression of satisfaction so thick that it practically oozed. “Benny’ll be happy to see this.”

Bill’s face turned the color of grape juice, the crappy Manischewitz kind that Galil could somehow gulp down every Shabbat without pulling a face. “I would destroy that,” he said, “if I didn’t have orders to stay in character.” He cleared his throat and said in a louder voice, “I’ve got to show you all about the animal barn, haven’t I? We have a fine variety here at the village.” With a look that suggested he was going to pass a kidney stone, he added, “I’m very glad I defected from the regular army. The Colonies are my home now.”

“Holy shite, Bill, who told ye t’say that?” Boaz asked. He had a hand on his chin, stroking his mustache between his thumb and fingers, and the expression on his face was horrified. “God, what kind of sex did Theo have t’promise ye for this?”

“Don’t you hate English people, Boaz?” Caleb said. 

“Aye, but this has gone way too far.”

Omer, on the other hand, looked absolutely delighted. “Say, Bill, have they punished you for shacking up with a colonist yet?” he bellowed. As usual, his intermittent deafness left absolutely no room for error. Sima was quite sure that everyone on the other side of the village could hear that. 

Bill’s face purpled even more. Sima wouldn’t have thought it possible. “I’ll have you know,” he said, “that I am on a – a secret mission for the Crown. I’m taking back the Colonies, one extremely-satisfied blacksmith at a time.”

The kids burst into laughter, probably at the thought of short, pudgy Bill getting chosen for anyone’s top-secret mission. Around her, Sima heard the adults try to hide various degrees of laughter, too - they clearly got the innuendo. She was personally too achy to laugh, not to mention that she suspected the baby would plunk out onto the straw-strewn ground if she so much as snorted too hard, but she appreciated the sentiment. 

“There,” said Bill shirtily once everyone had stopped laughing, “now that we’ve got that out of the way, may I show you the animals I’ve been helping to raise?”

“Are you really helping?” Phil said. 

“No,” Bill hissed. “I’m in character. Now –“

“Bill,” Dinah interrupted, “do you have a special character name like my brother does?”

Bill sighed deeply, like it hurt. “If I tell you, will you please let this be the last question?”

“Yeah, sure.”

He put his hands behind his back and thrust his chest out, eyes closed, as he breathed deeply in and out. “They call me Lobsterback Bill,” he said with very bad cheer, “the Redcoat Deserter.”

More stifled laughter, but this time, Galil punctuated it. “Lobster isn’t very kosher,” he said. “ _Ima?_ He’s Dr. Derensky’s boyfriend. They need to call him something else.”

“Nah, kid, don’t worry about it,” Noah said. “People meat isn’t kosher anyway. I looked it up.”

Galil moaned and squeezed Sima’s hand. Wasn’t that supposed to be her job, once labor really got going? “Ew, _Ima_ , people meat!”

“No one’s eating people meat,” she told him with a sigh. “Noah is just being gross. Noah, stop scaring my son.” She swiveled around and stared down at him – she wasn’t so tall, in fact shorter than he was, but he was a shrimpy, skinny guy and he acted like it. As expected, he shrank while she watched. “Good. Now, will you show us around the Village, Lobsterback Bill?”

“I am going to _rue_ ever doing this,” Bill muttered. He brushed past her and bulled through their small crowd of Jews, probably more than usually flocked to the kind of Anglo-Saxon wet dream that was the Village at any one time. “Shall we go to the crafting areas?”

“Wait, I want to see the pigs,” Galil said. “They’re really big. Can I pet them? Please?” He looked up at first Sima, then Bill with huge, pleading eyes. 

“The pigs don’t care to be petted,” Bill replied, “but you may pet the goats and the sheep. Would the rest of you care to pet them?”

“Goatse?” said Noah brightly. 

“You shut up,” Dwight growled, and Noah did. 

So with Galil, Phil, and Caleb in the lead, they all went over to pet a bunch of kosher cloven-hoofed animals that Sima’s kibbutz-dwelling ancestors very well could have raised. Nevertheless, she didn’t feel any connection with them beyond a momentary marvel at how springy sheep’s wool was when it still lived on the actual sheep. One of them scared both Phil and Boaz with a loud _baaaa_ , which was good for a laugh, but overall it seemed like the kids got way more of a kick out of the animals than she did. And she was getting another cramp. 

_This is for Galil_ , she reminded herself, and then Galil shouted, “Hey, _Ima!_ ” He had one hand between a goat’s horns and the other on its back, scratching it in both places. Galil’s grin and the placid look on the goat’s face suggested that they were both enjoying themselves. “It’s hairier than _Aba!_ ”

“Oh, come _on!_ ” Gad said. He had his own hands buried wrist-deep in sheep fur, or wool, or whatever you called it when it was still on the sheep (Sima was still going back and forth about that in her head). “That thing doesn’t have a better beard than I do.”

Galil shook his head and vigorously scratched the space between the goat’s horns. It butted him lightly in the stomach. “No, _Aba_ , your beard is better, but you don’t have so much hair on your butt.”

A few stalls down, surrounded by the sheep that occupied the space and a few that had wandered over for some reason, Omer guffawed. “He’s got you there!” His hair was grayer, but with how puffy it was, he could have been a sheep himself. He smelled like one today, anyhow. “Good observation, _nu_ , brother?”

Gad pouted, and loudly snorted a breath out through his flared nostrils like an angry bull. “Bill,” he said, “are there other places for us to explore here?”

“Oh yes, quite a few,” Bill said. “We should move on, anyhow. I think a real tour is scheduled to come through here soon.”

“But I don’t want to go,” Galil complained. “I want to say goodbye to Captain Buttbeard.”

More laughter, and now it came from everyone, including the costumed woman on the other side of the barn and the elderly couple with her. From the look of her, Sima thought she was probably a tour guide, one of the ‘real’ ones Bill was talking about. “Shall we go?” Bill asked, his tone so dry as to practically be dessicated. “There are craft houses to look at. I’m sure you lads would love to see wool as it’s being spun, wouldn’t you?”

“Like a spinning wheel?” Caleb asked. 

“Yes, exactly,” Bill answered, and then he seemed to remember that he was under orders to stay in character, because his voice rose again. “You may not have seen one before, as they’re only for families who are well-to-do enough to afford lots of wool. I know how to spin myself, since many soldiers need to know how to knit.”

“Really?” Sima asked in an undertone as Bill walked past her, making his way to the entrance. “I mean, did that really happen?”

He looked back at her and smiled. “Yes. A lot of soldiers were quite well-versed in handicrafts.” His voice was just loud enough for her to hear. “Some Scottish men, too – are you all right?”

No, she wasn’t. Her back and her belly both were killing her, and she thought she could feel something in her crotch stinging, too. No wonder her face looked messed up, since her insides were probably staging a revolt. “Gas,” she said. Her voice came out a little wobbly, but she thought it could probably still be concealed under the umbrella of gastrointestinal problems. “I’m farting like crazy.”

“Really?” That was Gad behind her. “I didn’t smell anything.”

 _Husbands_. “Of course you didn’t,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We’re surrounded by animals.”

Bill took her wrist in one hand and pressed his fingers against the pulse under her thumb. “Your pulse is _racing_ ,” he said after a few seconds. His face creased into a frown. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I told you, I’m gaseous.” 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “All right, then. Well, we’ll get to the craft areas, then. I don’t imagine the boys want to see all the fiber arts, but spinning always interests kids.”

“I see why,” she said. “Galil?” 

“I’m here, _Ima_ ,” Galil said. He grabbed her bare hand in his mitten-covered one. “What are we doing now?”

She squeezed his hand and smiled. “We’re going to go see some old-fashioned spinning wheels,” she told him, “and I bet they’ll let you help.”

“Let’s go,” Bill said, and took them out of the barn and down another path that looped back around the town square. The crafting area was located in a small house, really the size of a hut, that looked like it was made of some kind of white plaster and smelled like floor varnish and wool inside. 

Another woman in costume sat at one of the spinning wheels, pulling fiber from a handful of it wrapped around a vertical dowel of some kind. “Hello, Lobsterback Bill!” she said cheerfully, and Bill flinched. Sima gave her a thumbs-up from behind Bill’s back, which widened the woman’s smile. “Have you come to share your skills?”

“No, Goodwife,” said Bill, which was a different kind of hilarity altogether. “I’ve come to show these fine travelers the wonders of the modern spinning wheel.”

The woman sped up her spinning, its sound a soothing, clacking whir. “It truly is a marvel,” she said over the noise. “The wool that I’m spinning comes from the very sheep that we raise here in the village of Lexington. It makes strong yarn that can be knitted or woven.”

“Can I spin? Please?” Galil asked. He still held Sima’s hand, but he was nearly vibrating in place with what was probably excitement. “I really want to spin.”

“I’m the only one who can operate the wheel alone,” said the woman, “but you’re welcome to help. Come over here – what’s your name, young man?”

Galil detached himself from Sima’s side and clomped over to the woman. Sima winced to see the muddy, snowy footprints on the floor; hopefully, whoever cleaned this place wouldn’t be too upset with him. “I’m Galil,” he said once he was by her side. “Galil Rabin.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Galil,” the woman said. “My name is Mistress Smith, and I have been spinning since I was just a girl.” She stopped the wheel, then ran it again for a few more seconds. “Do you see how it takes my hands and my feet to make the wheel run?” Galil nodded. “There is a great deal of effort involved, but you can help me.”

“How?” Galil asked. 

“Put your hands on the distaff,” she said. Galil cocked his head, confused, and she pointed to the relevant part. “There,” she told him, “where I have the wool ready to be spun.” 

He nodded and rubbed both hands over the tuft of wool. “Oh, it’s soft!” he exclaimed. “It feels like a sheep tummy.”

“You didn’t even touch the sheep tummy!” Phil called. “How do you know?”

Galil set his mouth. “I can guess what a sheep tummy feels like.”

“Now,” the woman interrupted loudly, her mouth quivering in an obvious attempt to keep from laughing, “if you look, you’ll see where the unspun wool leads into the new yarn. Pinch the wool there, but please don’t pull hard, or you’ll break it.” 

He obeyed, thick fingers – just like his father’s – pinching tightly where the wool thinned out into the yarn she was spinning. “Okay, what do I do now?”

“As I spin, you’ll see that I need wool from the distaff to make more yarn.” The woman waved a hand at the thing in question. “Your job is to pull out just a bit at a time. Try to match the thickness of the yarn that I’ve already made. Are you ready?”

Galil nodded. “Yes!”

She began to spin, but the cramping in Sima’s crotch (and now she was fairly sure it was somewhere up in her vagina, that weird stinging) distracted her from being able to watch. In fact, she could barely even see, since her field of vision seemed to darken with the pain. 

For a couple of seconds, or maybe a couple of minutes, she stood there and did her best not to black out, hating herself the whole time. It was a _contraction_ , just a goddamn contraction, not even as bad as some of the cramps she had with her periods. She usually wasn’t on her feet with a giant belly out in front of her, and they usually weren’t so sharp, but they had been _worse_. 

“Sima? Sima, are you seeing this?” Gad nudged her in the side and chortled. “He hasn’t tangled it up yet. I think we’re looking at a future crafter.”

Sima looked. “Impressive,” she said, and it was, especially for a ten-year-old. Galil’s whole face was alight, and he wasn’t even squirming with excitement, which was even more so. That kind of rapt attention usually only happened when she was reading to him at night from a fantasy book or he was petting someone’s dog. 

Bill seemed to think so, too. “That’s quite a talent you have, Galil!” he said, and clasped his hands together in front of him with a satisfied-looking nod. 

“So where do I touch to fall asleep?” Noah spoke up. “That’s what’ll get my prince to kiss me, right?”

Bill covered his mouth and smothered some giggles. His friend looked about to do the same, but Galil just looked confused. “That’s a fairy tale,” he said. “It doesn’t happen in real life.”

Oh, Galil. _My sweet baby_. He’d been blunt, forthright – but never unkind – ever since he learned how to talk. She could count the number of times he’d told her a lie on one hand and have fingers left over. Someday, she just knew, he would make someone the world’s best husband…well, second only to his father, who had his hand on the small of Sima’s back. “No, it doesn’t,” she said. “But you’re very good at that, Galil. Do you want to come back here and give someone else a try?”

“Actually,” said Bill, coming forward with a turn of his wrist as if to check a watch he wasn’t wearing, “it would be best if we moved on to see how we prepare our food in the village.” Being in character really didn’t suit him; it would have been obvious at fifty paces. “You all look like big, strong lads.” He indicated Phil, Caleb, and Galil. “Would you like to help crush corn to feed us the rest of the winter?”

Skinny Caleb puffed up, probably at being called big and strong. “Mom, I want to help feed people.”

Dinah sighed. “Caleb, you know it’s not real, right?”

“Yeah, but I still want to help!”

So, of course, they all went out into the snow again, and it was then that Sima realized that she really fucking hated snow. She’d loved it before – winter was, in fact, her favorite season – but she was willing to do a complete 180 now that this stupid-ass pregnancy was making her waddle worse than the mama duck in the kids’ book she’d read Galil as a baby. Did that make her flaky? Maybe. But her back felt like someone had kicked it, and she didn’t give a damn. 

The cramps came a couple more times as she stood in a shed open to the elements, really more of a pavilion, and watched the boys (and Dwight, Noah, Gad, and even Dinah) take turns using a stone mortar and pestle to smash corn and acorns. Every time a piece flew in Bill’s direction, which given the level of force the boys gleefully used to smash the pestle down was rather often, a ripple of laughter went through their group while they watched Bill huff and pick bits off his clothes. 

“ _Ima_ , want a turn?” Galil asked after a very energetic bout, during which he’d actually jumped up and down to slam as much of his weight as he could into the mortar. “You can do it with _Tinok_ , ‘cause _Aba_ already did it and we should have the whole family.”

“No, it’s okay, _khamudi_.” She put both hands over her belly, which ached like the skin was being pulled tight over the baby and her insides both. “ _Ima_ doesn’t need to punch things with other things. It’s all you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bill turn away and pull his phone out of a well-hidden pocket in his breeches, and she hid a smile while he looked at the screen. “You know,” he announced after he’d put it away, “I have a hunch that the blacksmith of Lexington would love a visit from some curious young people.”

Sima clutched her belly. Shit. _Shit_. These cramps were getting worse, and…oh, hell, they were probably full-blown contractions now. Rationally, she knew the baby wasn’t in danger of spontaneously falling out or anything dire like that, but it hurt so badly that she couldn’t come up with words to describe the pain, even in her own head. “I…I bet they’d really like that,” she said. Squeaked. Galil didn’t seem to notice any difference, nor did Gad, who – thank God – was too busy pounding corn with his coat hanging open to look at her. 

“Come on, then,” Bill said. He looked a bit rumpled, like he was flagging just from the effort of getting them place to place. Being a tour guide really hung unflatteringly on him, like a coat that was way too big (not unlike the huge red one he was wearing, which had drawn snickers from the other reenactors they’d passed outside). “To the forge!” More quietly, he added “Theo thrives on this shite, God knows why.” 

The contraction passed, and Sima breathed more easily. “Because he has no life outside of school?” she suggested. “This is the only way he can be silly.” 

“He’s silly at home, too.” Bill sighed and drew his coat tighter around his body. “Gad – I mean, good sirs, it’s past time we visited the workings of the modern forge, where a very skilled iron-worker spends most of his time.” That got Gad’s attention, and soon they were outside yet again, although it was only a walk of about thirty seconds or so to a small, closed-off wooden building. 

They passed a tour group coming out, this one full of schoolkids with what looked like a very frazzled teacher. “Theo’s probably in hog heaven with those kids,” Dinah said, moving closer to Sima. “Bill’s wrong, you know. Theo’s silly all the damn time, just not when he’s actually teaching.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Noah commented from the back of the group, apparently having ears like a bat, “especially when he smokes up.” 

Dinah whipped around. “How the hell would _you_ know that?” she asked in a low, dangerous tone. “You’re not back on the wagon, are you?” 

“I’m not an addict!” Noah said. “I just smoked up a few times before I got on the meds. Did it in Theo’s house once ‘cause he wanted to see if the pot improved since he was in college. Did you know he’s a giggler?” 

“You smoked _doobies_ with Uncle Theo?” Phil exclaimed, hands on his hips just like his mother’s when she was trying to prove a point. “Dwight’s gonna spank you, Noah!” 

The cold wind that had howled around Sima’s house in the wee hours and woken her up began to blow again, but the laugh that welled up from deep in her aching abdomen kept her warm. Dwight himself looked like he was in a similar situation, bent over in helpless, gasping laughter with both hands on his knees. “He’s – he’s getting a spanking!” he managed to sputter. “Bad boy, Noah.” 

“Yeah, you better spank me,” Noah retorted, “but not here. You spank me in bed. Or on the kitchen table like last time –“ 

“ _Kids_ here,” Dinah interrupted. “We have young, impressionable minds that Theo has only managed to corrupt a little standing right here, people.” 

Caleb actually stamped a foot down on the icy path hard enough to make a smacking noise. “We’re not corrupted, Mom!” he said, sounding mortally insulted. “ _You’re_ corrupted!” 

Dinah ruffled his curls. “Yeah, and I admit it.” She patted Caleb first on the shoulder, to which he loudly protested with a screeched “ _Mom!_ ”, and then on his well-clothed _tuchus_ , probably just because she could. Sima had done the same thing to Galil’s fat little butt more times than she could count for the express purpose of hearin him squawk. “Okay, Caley, you want to cram it now? We shouldn’t keep Uncle Theo waiting, or he’ll start forging sculptures again, like that one I can’t show your grandma.” 

Dwight _pfft_ ed. “You can say ‘dildo,’ Dinah,” he suggested. “It’s not a crime. Theo forged a dildo and it was hilarious, but we gotta make sure he doesn’t do it again.” 

“Holy shit, Dwight!” Noah exclaimed, at the same time as the Adler-Derensky boys snorted with laughter and Galil asked “What’s a dildo, _Ima?_ ” 

Gad took over the task of responding with a series of spluttering non-answers, which was both good and bad, because it let Sima focus all the more on the band of pain that tightened hard and fast around her belly from the top to the bottom. She let her knees buckle just enough that it probably looked like she was laughing and rested her chin on her chest, breathing hard through her open mouth. This was officially worse than her period cramps, at least as bad as the cramps that an epidural had taken away when she gave birth a decade ago. 

“We don’t want him doing that,” said Dinah loudly, which suggested that she was more than done with this conversation. Sima suspected Dinah was far more patient than she herself was, since in the same position, she probably would have devolved into her nastiest Hebrew swear words. “Let’s keep him from forging inappropriate stuff, okay? Time to go see Theo the Smith.” 

“I’ve got to warn you, he’s not calling himself Theo,” Bill said. “Dinah, he’s told you, right?” 

Dinah shrugged, her mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Yeah, but I think I want it to be a nice surprise for everyone else.” She pointed towards the forge. “Onward.” 

As soon as the door – an enormous wooden thing with iron fittings and a heavy, elaborately-scrolled iron handle – screeched open, a blast of heat hit them all in the face, and the clang of a hammer on metal greeted them. “Do we have visitors?” boomed a voice that was only slightly recognizable as Theo’s; if this was him in character, then he should have gone into acting. 

“Yes, we do, Rabbi!” Bill said, raising his voice a bit more with every word. 

“ _Rabbi?_ ” Omer repeated, probably (or so Sima guessed) put out about someone usurping his one position of power, even if it was some guy in a costume wielding the title. “Is he serious, Gad?” 

“Oh, yeah, he’s serious,” Dwight answered before Gad could say anything. “He spent forever coming up with this character. You better not say anything against it or he’ll brain you.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and smiled. “It’s pretty funny, though, right?” 

The hammering noises stopped then, thank God, and the flame-outlined figure standing in front of a nearby anvil put its hammer down and walked over to them. “Welcome, visitors!” said Theo, wearing the broadest grin Sima had ever seen on his brooding face and a costume that fit one hell of a lot better than Bill’s did. He had his hair tied back and his shirt, which had laces running part of the way up the front, was unlaced enough to show off the muscles of his chest. “Have you come to see my wares?” 

“They’ve come to watch you work, Rabbi Rabinowitz,” said Bill. “These are Jewish people from this area of the Colonies who would like to see one of their own in such a fine occupation.” Those two sentences left his face looking like he’d shoved a whole lemon in his mouth, although whether it was from secondhand embarrassment or just plain personal humiliation, Sima couldn’t tell. 

Theo curved an arm under his chest and bowed elaborately, inclining his head toward first Sima and then his sister. “Then welcome to you,” he said. “I am Chaim Rabinowitz, blacksmith and rabbi to the town of Lexington.” 

“What are you working on right now, Rabbi Rabinowitz?” Dinah asked, a laugh very poorly hidden in her voice. “Is it a work of art?” 

Theo’s mask didn’t crack even a bit. _That_ was impressive, being able to stand up to your sibling’s ribbing and still stay in a fairly exaggerated character. “No, mistress, the town crier’s horse has thrown a shoe,” he said. “The others will need replacing soon, so I need to make a new set for him.” All that and he had a credible answer to her ribbing without missing a beat. Wow. 

Another contraction first swelled and then tightened in her belly and back. Her hands twitched and clenched, and she knew it wouldn’t help, but she put them over her navel anyway and watched Theo with pain-watery eyes as he went back over to the anvil. “Would you fine people like to see a demonstration?” he asked, raising his hammer. “I can show you the fine skills of blacksmithing. This is not a trade for the weak of heart or the weak of mind.” 

“He’s copying from Snape’s first speech, Mom,” Caleb whispered loudly. 

One of Theo’s eyes might have twitched then, but it could have been her own wavering vision or a trick of the uneven light from the brick fireplace against one wall. The pain squeezed and squeezed, and finally let up, drawing a tiny gasp from her, at the same time as Theo raised his hammer high and banged it down on the anvil with a sputter of sparks. “Horseshoes are not the finest things I forge,” he shouted their way after a few strokes, “but they’re among the most useful.” 

“From _this_ he gets a jolly?” Omer muttered, or what passed for a mutter from Omer. “Eh,” he added in a fast, inexplicable about-face, “I guess I’ve seen weirder.” 

“Nuh-uh, Uncle Omer,” Galil said, “this isn’t weird. It’s fun.” He looked at first Sima and then Gad. “I told you guys the Village is cool!” 

Phil, Caleb, and (for some reason) Noah moved closer to the anvil while Theo continued to work on his horseshoe. “That’s as good as it should be, I think,” he announced after a few minutes of banging away, and picked up the horseshoe, still softly glowing red, with a huge pair of tongs to dunk it in a bucket of water. Steam billowed out to nearly fill the entire forge. “This is my favorite part of my work,” he said, his voice coming through the fog like a vengeful ghost in a story about some haunted place. “I feel like I’ve stepped into a stormcloud.” 

Lightning struck her belly as though he’d summoned it, pain sharper and hotter than all the others. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched herself as it began, but it soon had her doubling over with a gasp and a wish for nothing more than for the pain to go away, _make it stop, make it stop_ …and she didn’t care who saw. 

“Sima!” Gad put his arms around her from behind and pulled her back up to a standing position with one long wrench. “Oh my God, Sima, are you okay?” 

The pain still surged and roiled and did a thousand other things inside her, sending bolts up the back of her skull and down to her knees. “Labor,” she said, and the word came out in a cry. “Back labor.” It was sure as hell front labor now. All-over labor. Had Galil hurt her like this coming out? It had been so long. 

“How long?” Gad demanded. 

Sima opened her eyes when the pain started to recede. “Hours,” she said, the word still all she could get out. 

“You’ve been having back labor for _hours_ and you didn’t tell me?” he echoed. Exclamations exploded around them, but his was the one she really cared about. “ _Kibinimat!_ How far along are you?” 

With one hand splayed out on her back, she looked up at him with as much conviction as she could muster. “This was for Galil,” she said. “He’s had enough of a hard time this year. I didn’t want to tell you – you’d have canceled the whole thing!” 

“Jesus Christ, Sima, your health’s more important!” Dinah said vehemently. “We could have rescheduled. How bad is the pain?” She crouched in front of Sima and put both hands on her belly without waiting for permission, as if that could help her gauge how close Sima was to, as Omer usually called it, ‘popping.’ 

Omer himself shuffled in place next to Gad, probably searching for his phone. “We need to get her to the hospital,” he said. “Where’s the hospital?” 

“That’s not gonna work,” said Theo, with a note of panic. He fished the horseshoe out of the bucket and slammed it down around the shaft of the hammer, then picked up another bucket sitting next to the forge fire and threw the contents inside. Sand flew out, immediately quenching the flames. “Omer, the hospital’s half an hour away and the roads are total shit.” 

Sima had a sudden urge to clutch her crotch at the stinging pain there, and kept herself from doing so with great difficulty. “And I’m not even supposed to go to Veterans’,” she said. “My doctor’s at McLean.” 

“Oh, shit. That’s even farther away.” Theo’s face went white as a dry bone, as far as she could tell by the ever-present torches on the walls. “Is – is there anywhere else you’re supposed to go if you have a surprise labor?” 

“No.” She wasn’t supposed to leave the house. If she went to the hospital now, even if they could by some miracle get her there without her passing out from the bumpy roads, Dr. Srinivasan would undoubtedly read her the riot act. She’d been very clear that Sima needed bed rest with what carrying the baby had done to her ankles, and now look what happened. She’d be right, too. 

Noah made a scared noise through his teeth, something combining a hiss and a whimper. “Wait, Sima, are you having the baby _here_?” 

“Well, we can’t move her!” Bill snapped, the one voice of – thank God – medical reason that she’d heard so far. “Sima.” He came over to her and rested a hand on her shoulder. “How far apart are your contractions? I need to call an ambulance, but it _will_ be a while until they arrive. The roads are truly terrible.” 

“Um.” Sima stuck a finger into her mouth and bit it while she thought. “Five minutes?” In truth, the pain never really went away, just faded to an ache that she had to assume was from her muscles yelling in protest. This whole morning had been one long contraction, then, starting from the time she woke up. “I’ll probably have another one soon and you can tell me.” 

Bill gave a very brisk nod. “Okay,” he said, “that’s what we’ll do, then. Theo, I think Martha’s working today. Go find her, and don’t dawdle about it. Ask her to bring the old quilts she uses to wrap the other quilts.” 

“Who’s Martha?” Dwight asked out of nowhere. He’d been silent about this so far, so Sima guessed he thought he needed to be helpful. Poor Dwight, useless for once in his life. 

Theo reached up and took a coat off a hook on the nearest wall. “Quilt reenactor,” he said as he put it on, “but she’s a midwife.” The coat was almost certainly part of his costume – it was fitted and looked eighteenth-century, not like the nylon stuff everyone else was wearing. “She likes to come over here on her days off.” 

“Enough history, Theo.” Bill thrust his chin out and gave Theo a belligerent look. “Get going.” 

Sima might have laughed, had times been different. Instead, she leaned against the wall, clutching her belly, and slid down to the floor as another contraction began. “Gad,” she said in a whisper. “Gad!” 

“ _Yafati, yafati_ , I’m here.” Gad squatted down next to her and put his arms around her shoulders with his face inches from hers. “Does it hurt again?” He looked up at the assembled group and shook his head. “Galil, get out of here. Go with Theo. You don’t want to see this.” 

Galil didn’t leave, but Sima didn’t really expect him to. “No, _Aba_ , I’m gonna stay with _Ima_.” He gave her belly a pat. “She really hurts. I don’t _want_ to go find Dr. Derensky.” 

“ _Go_ ,” Sima said, and it came out deep and twisted, as if the contraction were squeezing her throat as well. “Galli, I d-don’t want…want you – oh, God!” She curled up hard when another wave came upon her, rocking, shaking. Her husband’s and son’s hands disappeared in the hot haze of pain. 

Then it passed and she came back up with a gasp. Her forehead was suddenly sweaty, her hair drenched. Her coat needed to come off. She grasped the zipper with the trembling fingers of one hand and pulled it down, then began to struggle her arms out of the sleeves. “Help me, Gad.” 

To his credit, he didn’t object or ask if she was cracked in the head, messing with her clothes while she was in labor. He just took her arms out of the sleeves and pulled the coat off to lay it down neatly on the ground, and then he embraced her again. “Galli, you heard _Ima_ and me. Do you want a _zetz_?” 

Galil shook his head hard, grabbing a handful of his hair in each hand. “You can’t _zetz_ me! I’m being nice!” he protested. Letting go of his hair, he came closer on his knees and laid his head on her belly. “I can’t go, _Ima_. What if it’s bad and you die? I don’t want you to die.” 

“ _Bli ayin hara_ ,” Sima heard Omer murmur, echoed by two voices that sounded like Brian’s and for some reason, _Noah’s_. Tears came to her eyes, but not just because she appreciated the sentiment. Where had she gone wrong to make Galil think she was going to die? Had she explained it poorly or not given him enough books on the subject? Poor baby, her poor _khamud_. 

“Galil, I love you.” She took both hands off her belly and pulled him up by the shoulders, then held his face between her palms. “ _Ohevet m’od otkha_ , okay? I’m not dying here. This baby is not going to kill me. Do you believe me?” Galil stayed silent, but his sad eyes said enough. “ _M’vin_? You’re going to have me for a really long time.” 

He collapsed into her belly again, but she could feel him nod. “ _M’vin, Ima_.” 

“Okay,” she said, and ran her fingers through the cowlicked hair at the crown of his head. “Gadi, I don’t think he’s going anywhere. You want to…” What could he do, boil water? That was an old wives’ strategy anyway, wasn’t it? “…keep me from falling over? Just hold on to me when I have a contraction.” 

Galil pressed his ear against her navel. “I think I can hear the ocean. Do you have a lot of water in there with the baby?” 

“Um,” Sima said, a bit lost for words. Galil had never asked the awkward questions (he hadn’t even asked where babies came from, which was good, because the books they’d given him explained it in more detail than they’d have been able to do and he probably wouldn’t ask for another five years now). “Sort of. It’s…kind of water?” 

“Amniotic fluid,” said Bill. “It’s the stuff that surrounds the baby and cushions it. Galil, why don’t you wait outside and help Theo and Martha carry the quilts when they get back?” Galil’s face fell, but Bill just held up a hand. “You’ll be ten feet away from your mum, and you can come back to her in a few minutes.” 

Galil squinted at him. “I can come back when they bring the quilts? And they’ll be here soon? You promise?” 

“Yes, dear, I promise.” Bill held out his hand. “Here, now, I’ll help you up. There’s a good lad.” Galil tentatively put his hand out and Bill pulled him to his feet. “Just wait outside. Theo shouldn’t be long with the midwife – he hates standing around.” 

Galil crouched and put his arms around Sima, and loudly kissed her forehead. “I love you,” he said, then probably afraid that someone was going to shout at him, he hurried out the door. 

She breathed a hell of a lot easier once he couldn’t see her anymore, or she him. She wasn’t going to be able to be a good mom to him once the contractions began again. “Dinah, Boaz, you should take the boys home. There’s nothing for you to do h- _here!_ ” Her voice suddenly broke with another hard contraction and she leaned her head against the wall, eyes closed and mouth open, her breathing coming hard and loud. 

Someone gripped her hand. “No one’s leaving,” Dinah said firmly. Sima cracked open her eyes, although it took every last bit of strength that she had to do it, to see Dinah kneeling next to her. “Anything you need, Sima? You can squeeze my hand all you need. I’ll stay here the whole time if you need me to.” 

“ _Nnnnn_ ,” Sima moaned. She clasped Dinah’s hand between both of hers and squeezed with every pulse of the contraction. It helped enough that the need to keep squeezing outweighed the guilt she felt over the quiet gasp when she accidentally ground Dinah’s fingertips into the knuckles at the base of her fingers. Pain and pain, and more pain yet after that, enough that she thought she might pee herself with it. 

But no, when it ended, she was only sweating, and Gad’s arm was cinched ever tighter around her waist. She’d somehow let go of Dinah’s fingers in the rush of pain. “God, Sima,” he said. “You sure we can’t take you to the hospital? It’s killing me to see you hurt like this.” He leaned their foreheads together with a hand on the back of her neck, not close enough for his beard to tickle her lips but close enough for her to feel his breath on them. “Please. Whatever I can do.” 

Sima closed her eyes again – it was already an enormous effort to keep them open – and shook her head. “ _Lo rotzah l’lekhet_ ,” she said. For the moment, there was no English in her head. “ _Lo y’kholah l’zoz_.” She pulled away from Gad’s uncomfortable heat and cupped both hands under the bottom curve of her belly. 

“She doesn’t want to move,” Gad reported. “Bill? You okay with, uh, the medical stuff? And can you call an ambulance if something goes wrong?” He gulped audibly and paused, probably repeating the injunction against the Evil Eye in his head. “I – I don’t want it to hurt her…permanently. You know?” 

“I’ve got it,” said Bill, and that was when the noise at the forge door signaled that Theo and his party of magical birth helpers (and she’d have to tell him that name when this was all over) had arrived with kids in tow. “Oh, just a moment, let me corral them.” 

She was surprised it didn’t take constant applications of thumb and forefinger to keep her eyes wrenched open. Maybe the sight of Theo lugging in a bunch of quilts was too interesting to allow for rest. The woman walking in ahead of him was much smaller than he was, shorter even than Sima, but she looked a lot less disgruntled by the weight in her arms. “Hi,” she said, and unfolded her quilt carefully, then set it down on the floor. “Are you Sima?” 

Sima took a second to untwist the words in her mind from Hebrew to English, because the chances that this woman was Jewish _and_ remembered enough from Hebrew school to spare her the effort of speaking English were pretty low. “Yeah, that’s me,” she said. “I’m the one in labor.” 

Dwight and Noah both laughed…no, _giggled_ , because she wasn’t in the mood to be charitable about it. Martha smiled and tucked a stray lock of dark brown hair behind her right ear. “Martha Graziani. Sorry we couldn’t meet under less painful circumstances. Theo says you’ve been in labor for a while?” 

She nodded and braced her hands against the floor to stand up. “Woke up with back cramps at about five in the morning,” she said. “They were pretty low-key for a while, but they got really bad the last couple of hours.” 

“Okay,” said Martha, and looked at Theo. “I know you’re Mister In-Character and you keep this place the world’s most carefully-guarded secret, but can you break the silence and tell me if there are any electric lights in here? I can’t see anything with these torches.” She rolled up the sleeves of her button-down shirt and tightened the apron around her waist, the only piece of clothing she wore that actually looked period. If she’d rushed through a quick change for her, then Sima was grateful. 

Theo rolled his eyes and grumbled out, “Fine. I have work lights up there. You happy?” 

Martha stuck her tongue out at him. Weirdly, it made Sima feel better. Someone who was inflexible and didn’t know what to do in a contingency wouldn’t be comfortable with sticking her tongue out, right? “Good. Go turn them on, please. Bill, can you hand me that flashlight, and you two –“ she pointed to Dwight and Noah – “can you hold up two quilts in front of me while I work? I don’t want these kids seeing anything they don’t have to.” 

“Yeah, please,” Phil put in. “It’s gross.” 

Gad gave him a warning glare, but Sima shook her head. “He’s right. They shouldn’t have to see me having a baby. Galli, I’d prefer if you weren’t here, either, but I know you’re not going anywhere.” 

Galil set down the quilt in his arms, which unrolled a bit on the floor. “No, _Ima_ ,” he said. Sima heard the snap of a light switch, and the forge was suddenly illuminated with track lights that had to be hidden in the ceiling. Smart; no one was ever going to look up when there were more interesting demonstrations on the ground. “I want to help.” 

“If you want to stay,” Sima said, “then you have to sit quietly and not disturb Martha. I mean it, Galli.” His face was already set in the ‘I don’t want to do as I’m told’ expression. “No talking, no disruptions, no trying to get your hands in to help. You sit there and watch. _M’vin?_ ” He slowly nodded. “Good.” 

Martha waved from behind the quilt wall that Dwight and Noah had set up; she was kneeling on the first one that she’d put down. “Sima, could you come over here and lie down? Knees up if you can. I need to see what’s going on in there.” 

Sima went to lie down, squat-walking her way through the space that Dwight and Noah thoughtfully made by pulling the quilts apart, and lay down as fast as she could. Another contraction was coming – she could feel it in the throbbing pain behind her temples and forehead as much as in her belly and groin. Better to have it in front of someone who knew what was going on. 

“Thanks,” said Martha with a smile. She knelt between Sima’s spread legs, pulled her underpants down, and put a palm on each inner thigh. “So how far apart are your contractions, Sima?” 

“Few minutes,” Sima grunted. “I…I can feel one now.” She looked down the lone mountain of her belly towards the midwife and added, in that second before the pain fully hit, “Touch me ‘f you need to.” 

No one held her hand for this one, yet it was very comforting to have Martha’s hands on her belly while she shivered and moaned with it. She closed her eyes again and tried to just let it roll over her; no telling how well it worked, or how much time passed before the contraction ended, but when she opened her eyes again, Gad was sitting beside Martha with his hands on his thighs and Martha herself had a huge grin on her face. 

“Congratulations, Sima,” she said. “Your water broke. You’re going to have this baby really soon.” 

“What’s a broken water?” Galil inquired, just on the other side of the quilt wall. 

Sima could twist her neck around just enough to see how green Noah and Dwight’s faces were. She reminded herself to thank them later for not throwing up at the sight. 

“The sack that the baby was in popped,” said Martha without even a pause. Sima winced as the midwife put her hand inside her. “Sorry, if I were on the job, I’d have lube,” she added apologetically. “We need to do this dry.” 

“The baby’s in a sack? Wicked!” Caleb exclaimed. “Uncle Theo, let me over there! I want to see!” 

Theo growled. “Do I gotta put you and your brother in the stocks, Caley?” he said, more of a demand than a question. 

Galil squirmed under the dragging edge of one of the quilts on his hands and knees with a rustle and an ‘oof!’ that drowned out Caleb’s answer. “How come Mr. Bill’s not in here?” he asked. “He’s a nurse, right?” 

“Your mum will tell me if she needs help,” Bill said. “Now be good and sit quietly like she told you. You, Boaz, go show the boys the stocks. If Dorian asks, say you want the gaoler to show these two lads where the rabbi gets put for crimes against nature.” 

“How long’s this gonna take?” Dwight asked. “No offense or anything, I just need to take a piss.” 

Martha withdrew her hand and glanced at her fingers, then turned her head towards Dwight. “She’s almost fully dilated. I can’t make any promises, of course, but I wouldn’t expect more than another couple of hours.” 

Dwight sighed, but even upside-down as they were from her vantage point, Sima could see Boaz tap him on the shoulder. “Never fear, I can take over if you’ve got to drain it,” he said. “Phil and Caleb can see the stocks another time.” 

“What’s that ‘crimes against nature’ thing?” Sima puffed. Shit, it was like someone had stuffed both of her lungs into a Coke bottle – was this what Galil felt like when he had one of those asthma attacks of his? “Sounds really homophobic.” 

Bill snorted. “It absolutely is, make no mistake. Theo insists on _historical accuracy_. I got put in there with him on my first visit!” 

“Then you shouldn’t’a visited,” Theo replied. “You know my views on historical accuracy. And it was for fifteen minutes, ya big baby.” 

“Oh, yes, a fine litmus test,” Bill said. “Oi, there, Boaz, you’ve got an elbow in my ribs.” 

Sima pushed herself up on her elbows to see better, because this was a show she didn’t want to miss. Boaz took the quilt from Dwight, who ran off immediately, and gave Bill an apologetic shrug. “Sorry about that. Just thought Dwight was goin’ to burst.” 

“Of course.” That seemed to soften Bill up a bit. “All right there, Sima?” 

“Mm-hm,” she sighed as she lay back. “Martha, tell me the truth. Is this the weirdest birth you’ve ever been to? I can take it.” 

“Close to it,” said Martha cheerfully, “but look on the bright side. You’re doing great so far. This baby is coming out soon.” 

That wasn’t news to her, but it was definitely news to her body. “How’s _that_ possible? I don’t even feel like I have to push yet.” 

“Well, no, but I can check you again, just to make sure.” Sima nodded her head against the blanket, and Martha leaned over her again to give her another exam. This time, her fingers caused a spasm, and thank God she took her hand out before the contraction really got going. That would have been even less comfortable than usual. 

She was also prudent enough to wait until Sima had stopped gasping and moaning to add, “No, you’re checking out just fine. A few more of those and you’ll be fully dilated. I thought this wasn’t your first kid?” 

“It isn’t, but it’s been ten years.” It looked like time had made her forget how much of a pain in the ass Galil had been. For the love of God, to quote that show that Gad liked to watch when he couldn’t sleep (or he’d had too much to drink), he tore her from her V to her A. “Galil’s ten, can you believe it? It feels like he was just learning to walk yesterday.” Talking was a good distraction. 

In her peripheral vision, she saw Gad pull Galil close and pat him on the back. “What was he, Sima, twelve pounds? They called him the Elephant Baby at the hospital.” 

“Gad, no, they didn’t. You’re exaggerating. He wasn’t _twelve pounds_.” Or was he? Stupid details, sliding out of her head like lost marbles, both the literal kind and the figurative kind. Galil had had a set once, but they’d had to get rid of it because Omer kept stepping on them when he visited and hollering – and there went her uterus again, interrupting any good goddamn memories. 

Talking was out of the question, so she just kept her eyes closed through that contraction and the next, then another and another, listening foggily and obeying when Martha instructed her to spread her legs or sit up a little, and lying back in relief – even pride – when the midwife said she was doing well. _My water broke_ , she found herself thinking when the force of one particular contraction made a black sunburst form around the edge of the orange light behind her closed eyes. _It has to be soon._

“Sima, you feel like you can push now?” Martha asked. She laid a hand on Sima’s belly and, like a grounding strip, it helped keep her mind from flying off into who-only-knew-what direction. Sima opened her eyes and squinted against the work lights to see Martha with an encouraging smile on her face and her hair falling out of its bun. 

The ever-present pressure in her belly did feel a little different. Did that mean she wanted to push? Sima would have shrugged if she’d had the energy. Martha was the expert here, and if she said the baby was ready to be born, then it was going to be born. “You want me lying down for this?” How was her voice that croaky? 

Martha shook her head. “Nope, I want you to squat. Gad, you mind holding one of her arms? And...” she pursed her lips, then pointed out of the quilt circle. “Dwight. Can you hold her on the other side? I need to be between her legs to see what I’m doing.” 

“No shame if you can’t,” said Noah. 

“Oh, fuck you,” Dwight grumbled. “I can do it. Move over, Boaz.” He came over and grabbed Sima firmly by the arm and shoulder, and with Gad’s help on the other side and a hell of a lot grunts, they lifted her up into a squat. “Wow. And I thought I had to lift heavy stuff in Mossad.” 

Noah sniggered and was silenced by a look from Martha. “Push on the next contraction, Sima,” she said. “Keep holding her there, you two. Don’t let her fall over under any circumstances. Got it?” 

They got it, and said so. The next pain wasn’t long in coming, so Sima was glad of their support when it did. Sucking in an enormous breath, she ground her teeth together and pushed as hard as she could. Something moved inside her, and the next breath came in a hiss through her teeth. “Is – is it good?” she panted. 

“Yeah, it’s good,” Martha said. “Good, Sima. Another one like that.” 

She obeyed, and as she did, she heard Theo’s voice. “Bill,” he said, “times like this, I’m really glad I don’t got the other junk.” 

“Stop being fickle,” said Bill. “You told me you’ve wished for a vulva before.” 

“’Cause I got a kidney stone stuck halfway down the fishing pole, Billy, I think you can make an exception for that.” 

Regardless of the pain, Sima couldn’t stop herself from laughing, even though it came out sounding really weird with the baby taking all her lung power for its exit. But miracles had to exist; with the laugh came a push, and something was _definitely_ making its way out now. “Good!” Martha exclaimed. “Sima, the head’s through the cervix. Another push and you’ll crown.” 

“What’s crowning, _Ima?_ ” Galil burst out before audibly remembering with an _ulp_ that he wasn’t supposed to talk. 

“No, no,” Sima said, “it’s okay. Just - _nnnngh!_ ” She bore down again and threw her head back. “Baby’s head is coming out.” 

Out of the corner of her eye came the strangest sight of the day – Phil sticking his head under one of the quilts to look at her. It was gone like a shot, of course. “Mom!” he shrieked. “Ew! There’s red hair on her fun house and red hair on the baby!” 

“Goddammit, Phil!” Theo roared. “Do I need to ground you again?” 

Lightning-fast, Caleb’s head appeared where Phil’s had just been and then just as quickly retreated. Those boys had to be about as dumb as a box of rocks, give or take a few pieces of granite that had obviously bonked them both on the head. “Ew, Mom, how come she gets to poop on the quilt and I’m not allowed to pee in the shower?” 

Theo pinched the bridge of his nose. He was tall enough (and the owner of distinctive enough hair) that Sima could see him over the quilt wall even with her eyes narrowed. “You get to piss in the shower when you squeeze a twelve-pound watermelon outta your ass, you hear me, Caleb?” 

Was nobody ever going to shut up with that stupid exaggeration? “He wasn’t _twelve pounds!_ ” Sima shouted over to them, and squinched her face up to push with the next urge. Yeah, she probably had pooped, and she very much hoped that everyone involved in this mess would be kind enough not to bring it up at the next Hillel. 

In a wobbly voice, Gad said “Oh my God, Sima, the head’s out,” and there was momentary silence. 

“Sure is.” Martha reached between Sima’s legs and touched the head. “You’re doing so well. One more push and the baby will be born. I’m here to catch it. You ready?” 

She didn’t say yes – didn’t _need_ to say yes. With the biggest breath of all, she pushed as hard as she could, pushed until her thighs cramped and her ankles trembled and only stopped when she heard a cry from below her. _Her baby’s_ cry. “Good job.” Martha sounded like she was about to cry herself. “You did such a good job, Sima. She’s healthy.” 

_Healthy_. Sima lost her footing at that and her ass hit the quilt hard. The baby would have come with her, still attached by the umbilical cord, if Martha hadn’t quickly gotten down on the floor and prevented her from bouncing on the floor like a yo-yo on a string. “Be careful, _Ima!_ ” Galil said. 

“Your son’s right. You still have to deliver the placenta.” Martha passed the baby into Gad’s waiting, if trembling, arms and put both hands firmly on the upper part of Sima’s belly. “This’ll be easy. It should be out in a few pushes.” 

Dwight made a revolted noise deep in his throat. “I don’t want to see this. Noah, I’m out.” 

“Come on,” said Noah with a sniff, “it’s the miracle of life. Get over here and hold me or I’m divorcing you.” 

Martha didn’t dignify them with a response. “I’m assuming you’ve had all your shots, right?” she asked. Her face was red and sweaty, much as Sima imagined her own was, and her hair had completely fallen out of its bun. 

“Yes, but what’s that have to do with anything?” Oh, God, she ached. A truck had to have hit her right in the belly, and Martha’s hands weren’t making it any easier. 

Bill peeked over the quilt wall. “Congenital defects from rubella, neonatal tetanus, puerperal fever from a besieged immune system, shall I go on? Theo, have you got a knife? And please tell me there’s cell phone reception here.” 

“I’m gonna puke,” Theo groaned. 

“You watched my kids getting born,” said Dinah. “You’re not puking.” 

Bill sighed. “I’m calling an ambulance. Martha, what do you need?” 

Martha kept pressing her hands down on Sima’s belly. “A knife to cut the cord,” she said. Theo stuck one through the gap in the quilts. “Thanks. Hey, _Dad_ , you want to cut it?” 

“I…” Gad looked at the baby and then at Sima, his lip shaking. “Galil, come here. Take your sister.” 

Galil’s eyes went wide enough that Sima thought they’d roll out of his head. “Me, _Aba?_ ” He didn’t wait for an answer from Gad, just scrambled forward and took the baby. Gad picked up the knife as soon as he did and sliced the cord in one stroke. 

That was when Sima remembered herself. “Hey, be careful!” she complained. “We’re banking that blood.” 

“Don’t worry,” said Martha. “It’s still bankable. Theo, get me a Ziploc from storage. Sima? Push. The placenta’s about to come out.” 

She did, and it did. Galil’s eyes went from wide to huge and his jaw dropped. “What’s _that?_ ” 

As if the placenta was a signal, the quilt wall dropped and every person in the forge crowded around her. “It’s the in-utero source of nourishment for the baby,” said Martha. 

“And that’s your sister,” said Noah, rubbing his upper arms as Dwight cuddled him around the waist with his head on Noah’s shoulder. “Dwight, I want one.” 

“Oh, no,” Dwight groaned, and probably on a completely unrelated note, Galil burst into tears. 

“ _Khamudi!_ ” Sima got up as much as she could and crawled to him. His grip on the baby was secure, but tears were sliding down his red cheeks and his lower lip was quivering. “What’s wrong?” 

“My sister,” Galil whimpered. 

“ _Ken, ha’akhat shelkha_.” Gad took Galil, baby and all, into his lap. “ _Zot tinoket_. She’ll love you when she gets older.” 

For the first time, Sima looked down at the baby’s face. She wasn’t crying now. Her dark eyes were unfocused, the red hair on her head that Phil had commented on so loudly wet and sticky. Every inch of her skin was bright pink and her head was an almost perfect cone, and like her brother, she was beautiful. “ _Yesh lah shem_ , Galil,” she said. “ _Ha’shem shel ha’akhot shelkha_ Geula.” She and Gad had settled on it only weeks before – a name that meant ‘redemption.’ 

“Geula?” Galil looked up and wiped his eyes with his wrist. Sima realized too late that all of their outer clothes were going to need a wash, covered as the baby was with disgusting stuff. “Geula what, _Ima?_ ” 

“You’re calling her Gula?” Theo said, as if trying the name out. 

“ _Gouda!_ ” Phil crowed. 

“No.” Sima shook her head, cleared her throat, and sounded out the syllables loudly. “ _Geh-oo-la._ ” She touched Galil’s shoulder and he turned his head to look at her. “ _Khamudi_ , Galli, you were such a good help. You choose her middle name.” 

“Dinah!” Caleb suggested. “No…wait, Mom’s still alive. Never mind.” 

“We got any dead relatives the cousins haven’t gotten to?” Omer asked. 

Boaz reached a hand out and let it hover a couple of feet away from them, although not touching them, thank God. Sima suspected she would have bitten his hand off. “Looks like a Rachel to me,” he said. 

Galil rocked his sister back and forth in his arms. His tears had dried, leaving tracks on his cheeks and in the red peach-fuzz of a mustache that Gad said was normal for his family at that age. “I like Ruth and Naomi,” he said softly. “They were like sisters and they never let anyone hurt each other. She’s Geula Naomi.” 

“Naomi is a nice name,” said Phil. _That_ was a surprise from a kid who’d been comparing her to cheese about five seconds ago. 

“Nice name?” Theo emerged from a door next to the hanging tools with a plastic grocery bag dangling from one hand. “What’d I miss?” 

“Geula Naomi.” Noah leaned his head over and kissed Dwight’s cheek. “And I still want one.” 

Theo set the bag down in front of the three of them…no, no, there were _four_ of them now. Martha took it and started bundling the placenta away. “Nah, Noah, you don’t want one,” Theo said. “You can’t give a kid a Mohawk or they call CPS on you.” 

A gust of cold air came in as the front door opened, letting Bill in, and then slammed shut. Bill bolted the lock and sighed. “An ambulance is on its way and you’d best either get things moving or put up the closed sign,” he said. “People are asking why there’s no tour.” 

“Tell ‘em I said fuck off,” said Theo. Bill raised one eyebrow. “Okay, tell ‘em the blacksmith got an attack of morbid humors or something. It’s period-accurate.” He clasped his hands together and came over to the circle of people. “Mind if I have a look at her, Sima? Gad?” 

Sima exchanged a look with Gad. He didn’t look too perturbed. Theo was pretty trustworthy, as far as she knew. “Sure,” she said. “Galil, don’t hold her so close. Let Dr. Derensky have a look.” 

Theo knelt in front of them as a smile formed on his face. “I’m gonna have to do a lot of signs to outforge _you_ ,” he said to the baby. “You’re trouble for everyone today, you know that?” 

Geula yawned. Theo’s eyes crinkled and he stroked her forehead with an index finger – it was nearly as long as her forehead was wide. “Trouble,” he repeated. “I’m calling you Trouble. You got your dad’s hair, don’t you?” 

“ _My_ hair,” said Galil. 

Theo nodded. His brows lowered and his chin set, mock-serious. “Of course, kid, she has her brother’s hair.” He set a hand on each of Galil’s shoulders. “You’re a good man, Galil. You helped your mom and you didn’t act like my stupid-ass nephews while you did it. She’s lucky to have you.” 

“I’m _not_ -“ Phil began. 

“No,” Dinah said. “Phil, I’m willing to concede the point in general, but smart kids don’t sneak looks at a woman in labor. Don’t argue with Uncle Theo right now.” 

“ _Fine_.” 

“You’ve done wonderfully, Sima,” said Bill. There was a grin on his face from ear to ear, and it looked a little strange on him. “I’m taking Theo outside to wait for the ambulance. You’ll stay here, right?” 

“Of course,” Sima answered. She didn’t think that Galil would be very keen to let go of his new sister, and she and Gad for sure weren’t moving from this spot if he wasn’t. 

“You know what?” Theo said. “Bill, take me out to the stocks. It’ll keep people from trying to get in here, you know, the whole bread and circuses thing.” 

Bill did not look amused. “Crimes against nature again?” 

“Yep.” 

“Fine. But I get to have you perform crimes against nature on me tonight.” 

Theo shrugged one shoulder. “Fine by me, Lobsterback. Spank my _tuchus_ ‘til it’s as red as your coat.” 

Bill dragged Theo out by the arm and Sima tightened her grip on Galil and Gad both, and there they stayed until the ambulance came to take them away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary  
>  _Khamudi_ : cutie, sweetheart (Hebrew)  
>  _Zeh b'seder_ : it's okay (Hebrew)  
>  _Motek_ : sweetie (Hebrew)  
>  _B'vakasha_ : please (Hebrew)  
>  _Gevalt_ : jeez (Yiddish)  
>  _Hayiti v'kitah gimel, hayah harbeh_ : when I was in third grade, there were a lot (Hebrew)  
>  _Yafati_ : lovely, my beauty (Hebrew)  
>  _Hatinok shelanu_ : our baby (Hebrew)  
>  _Lo tinok_ : [he's] not a baby (Hebrew)  
>  _Tzedakah_ : charity (Hebrew)  
>  _Nu_ : eh (Yiddish and Russian)  
>  _Kibinimat_ : motherfucker (Hebrew, loanword from Russian)  
>  _Zetz_ : spank (Yiddish)  
>  _Ohevet m'od otkha_ : I love you very much (Hebrew)  
>  _M'vin?_ [Do you] understand? (Hebrew)  
>  _Lo rotzah l'lekhet_ : I don't want to walk (Hebrew)  
>  _Lo y'kholah l'zoz_ : I can't move (Hebrew)  
>  _Ken, ha'akhat shelkha_ : yes, your sister (Hebrew)  
>  _Zot tinoket_ : it's a [female] baby (Hebrew)  
>  _Yesh lah shem_ : she has a name (Hebrew)  
>  _Ha'shem shel ha'akhot shelkha_ : your sister's name [is] (Hebrew)  
>  _Tuchus_ : butt (Yiddish) 
> 
> Labor really can take only a few hours in the later stages, especially if it's not a first birth.
> 
> And yes, it's a shout-out to Dwarven battle pigs. :D I couldn't resist.
> 
> Also for those of you who are wondering, the children's book Sima is thinking of is called Make Way for Ducklings, and it takes place in Boston Public Garden. I think an aunt who lived in the area gave my mom a copy as a gift when I was a baby.


	15. Until the Day Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo is in his element, and then he is not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for violence and anti-Semitic slurs.

Theo squinted at his computer screen and tapped his pen against the mouse pad. That freak snow day they’d had last month had thrown off his entire schedule, but being the classic lazy (and busy) bastard, he hadn’t had the time or the inclination to officially rearrange his syllabi until now. The kids were all behind on the reading, except for the classic brown-nosers who’d done it all at the beginning of the semester, and he needed to make some changes to the required reading. 

His office was pretty nice for a place without a window. He had framed copies of a bunch of different Middle Eastern artworks from various periods in history up on the wall, along with a horseshoe he’d forged (he’d wanted a sword, but the stupid-ass administration said no even though he had tenure, so he’d gone with the good-luck charm), and his heavy, dark-stained desk was covered in photos of Dee, the boys, Bill, and most recently, Geula. She’d had her first birthday a week or two ago and she was a sweet kid, even if she did call him ‘Doodoo.’ 

The only downside to this place was that since they housed the offices of the History, Political Science, and Religious Studies departments in the same hallway, his office was only two down from Morningwood’s. Keeping himself from pulling pranks on the guy took most of his self-control on a _good_ day. He usually settled for giving his office door the middle finger when it was closed and only let himself go all-out on April Fools’ Day. Theo grinned evilly at his computer – that was in two weeks. He needed to start preparing. 

He was just about to delete the last set of readings before finals week for the 100-level class, the only one that his freshman students could really stand to go without, when the office phone rang. Minimizing the Word window, he grabbed the black plastic receiver. “Hello?” 

“Theo, it’s Bill.” 

“Hey.” Theo put the phone between his ear and his shoulder, since Bill likely wouldn’t mind if multitasking made his voice a little garbled, and went back to what he’d been doing. “I thought you were at work. How’s your afternoon going?” 

“Fine. Haven’t had time to eat until now. Monique’s trying to feed me a juice box – oi! Stop that, Monique, I am _not_ an invalid!” There was a pause, during which Theo could distantly hear Bill’s fellow nurse and friend tell him what he could do with his hands if he didn’t get some electrolytes in him, and then Bill returned with a sigh. “Sorry. Have you got a moment?” 

He nodded and nearly dislodged the phone. “Yeah, I have an hour between classes. Something wrong?” That was one schedule done. He clicked out of the window and pulled up the syllabus for one of his upper-level classes, Early Middle Eastern History. It was the one he had to teach next, although the kids were smart enough that it didn’t really feel like an obligation. 

The receiver crackled with static before Bill’s voice resolved into clarity. “I hate this damn phone line,” he said irritably. “Anyhow, no, nothing’s wrong. I had a favor to ask.” 

“Yeah?” Theo dug his top teeth into his bottom lip. Curse him for a moron, assigning all that reading _and_ papers on top of that. This really needed to be a year class, not a semester one. There wasn’t much that he could cut. “What’s the favor?” 

“Well, you’ve got to keep this to yourself, because I’m not exactly sure how well it fits with the hospital rules,” Bill said. “I’ve got a patient. Technically an ex-patient. She’s signed the discharge papers and she’s just waiting for her husband to pick her up. Anyhow, she’s a journalist for some Internet magazine.” 

Theo stopped typing and leaned his elbows on the desk. “Bill, this better not be some expose-Darrens scam. I thought you were smarter than that.” Probably his own fault for not giving Bill the Official How to Be Close to T.D. Darrens Without Accidentally Outing Him five-minute school (all right, so it wasn’t official, but Danny bloviated like it was). 

“Oh, it’s not. I promise it’s not. She has no idea who you are.” Theo let out a silent sigh of relief. “I happened to mention that you’re the child of Holocaust survivors,” Bill continued, “and since it’s the seventieth anniversary year of the concentration-camp liberation, she’s writing an article about survivors’ lives after the war. She’d like to interview you.” 

So it wasn’t a potential media blow-up. Thank fuck. “That’s kind of out of left field,” Theo said. “Seventy isn’t a huge anniversary year.” 

He could practically hear Bill shrug. “Eh. It’s a decade marker, at least. She did say that she was afraid if she waited another five years to bring up the idea, all the survivors would have died.” 

“A woman after my own twisted heart.” Not that it was a bad idea. America needed a periodic reminder of how much of a kick in the ass it deserved for not helping Europe’s Jews when it had the chance (and the knowledge, even though most historians preferred to kiss Roosevelt’s long-dead heinie and insist that no one knew). “No photos, though.” He wasn’t willing to take any more of a risk than putting his name in print. 

“She’ll probably agree to that. Would you be willing to meet with her today, though?” Bill asked. “After your class is finished? She said it’s the only time this week when she’s not busy.” 

That second reading on the Epic of Gilgamesh could take the hit, Theo decided. It was a ubiquitous enough piece of history that he didn’t think he needed the students to plumb the depths of every historian’s brain about it. “Sure,” he said. “Just no liability issues, please? I don’t want to be responsible for her bursting something after surgery or whatever she had.” 

“Paranoid,” Bill said with a snort. “I can only tell you there’s no risk of that. Your class gets out at four, right? Shall I send her to the student center for four-thirty?” 

His class let out at four. That was more than enough time to gather his thoughts and gird his loins for an interview. “That’s fine. Have her meet me in the front atrium and we’ll find somewhere more private to talk.” Not that he really feared people knowing about his parents’ history, but he didn’t want anyone to see him should he start crying. 

“All right, thank you. I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you her name, but when it gets close to the time, I’ll text you with what she’ll tell me she’s wearing.” 

“You better not be leading me into a trap,” Theo said. “If you are, I’m leaving you.” His life was full of clandestine shit like this. It just usually happened to manifest on his end with regards to privacy, not Bill’s. He guessed this was just a perk of dating a healthcare professional, much like the occasional dinner filled with talk of how much pus Bill had gotten on his scrubs that day (and whose it was). 

“You know I’m not,” said Bill. “I should go, though. They don’t like us to be too long on our phones, and you’ve got work to do.” 

Theo smiled a little. No rest for the underpaid, whether they were academics or underappreciated nurses. “Okay, Bill. I love you. Talk to you at home?” 

Bill made a kiss noise through the receiver. “I love you too, Theo. I’ll be home at about six-thirty.” 

“Okay,” Theo said. “If I’m not done by then, just get dinner started by yourself. I know how hungry you get after those shifts.” 

“All right. See you then.” 

“You too.” He made a kiss noise back at Bill, then hung up the phone. Surprise conversations were always a good way to break up the monotony of school, which could be surprisingly boring even when you were teaching. If only Bill could get a job a little closer to campus; they’d still have to work around two wacky schedules, but at least they could do lunch on occasion. 

The Early Middle Eastern History schedule took about twenty more minutes to finalize. When that was finished, Theo sent out a mass email to his students with the new syllabus attached and turned his attention to the last item on his to-revise list: the assignment schedule for his Introduction to Modern Warfare class. The snow day had been on a Tuesday and this class met on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but some of the students had been begging for an extension on the midterm paper. He figured he could afford to stretch it by another week or so, since this year’s class wasn’t actually full of slackers who needed a little professorial punishment. 

He took a look at the clock after he finished sending out that email. It was a cuckoo clock, modeled on the kinds they made in Western Europe during the nineteenth century, and it had been a present from the department head when Theo turned forty. It also said that he only had eight minutes to get his ass to class. “Fuck.” He booted down the computer, grabbed his messenger bag, and turned the lights off on the way out, thankful that the class met in the same building that his office was in. 

Today was his annual lecture on Babylonian temple customs and how they were inserted into later religions, namely ritualistic sex. It was always a crowd-pleaser, and it also explained why the classroom was already most of the way full by the time he got there, when the kids taking the class usually preferred to wait until thirty seconds before it started to walk in. The lecture would be standing room only in a few minutes, he knew, and it wasn’t just because the content was so interesting. They wanted to hear what he’d once – horrifyingly – heard referred to as ‘Dr. Derensky’s cream-your-pants voice’ talking about male-on-male sex, the origins of the Judaic laws on the subject, and ancient Sumerian temples. 

“Afternoon, everyone,” he said, dumping his bag behind the podium at the front of the room and opening it up to get out his material for the day. “Hi to my regular students, and to anyone who’s just here for today’s lecture, you should know I’m not giving you credit for it.” A chuckle went through the student population, which was about what he’d expected. 

He stood back up, papers and flash drive in hand, and stared the students down. “All right, you all know today’s lecture is kind of a sensitive topic. I’m going to be referring to the Biblical sexual laws in their historical context and you all know there are plenty of religious people on campus. They haven’t bothered me and I don’t want to bother them, so no one better be recording this on your phone or I’m marking you _all_ absent for today.” 

One of his registered students, a junior with spiky black hair who was wearing a striped polo shirt, raised his hand with a smirk. “Dr. Derensky, I’m religious,” he said when Theo called on him. 

Theo smirked back at him. “Yeah, I know you are, Ahmed. Let me know if I offend you.” Another wave of low laughter filled the room. “I’m serious,” he said. “I have a meeting at four-thirty, but if anyone needs to correct me, I’ll be here for a while. Make me stay after class if I screw up.” 

“I’ll do that, Dr. D.,” Ahmed said. “And MSA’s having a bake sale tomorrow. My mother donated almond cookies, so you should come by.” 

“Muslim Students Association? Excellent,” Theo said, and glanced down at his papers. “Okay, let’s get started.” He shoved the flash drive into the computer at the podium, which he normally would have done before class started (damn his attention span), and pulled up the PowerPoint he’d prepared. “Those of you who actually take this class, who did the readings for today?” Every hand went up. “Those of you who are actually telling the truth will remember that Meador did some excellent translations of poetry by Enheduanna.” 

He hit F5 to bring up the presentation and pressed a button in the podium to start up the overhead projector attached to the ceiling. “There’s a lot of debate among historians about how authentic the Enheduanna persona was,” he said, “but the ones who think she was a real person cite her as one of the first examples of a written as opposed to an oral author, especially a female one. The subject of some of her poetry is an excellent lead-in to the sexual customs we’ll be talking about today.” 

One of the students in the back raised her hand high. “Sorry to interrupt so early,” she said after Theo pointed at her, “but didn’t Enheduanna live almost a millennium after the Biblical sexual laws got written down?” 

That was impressive. It would add to class time, but it wasn’t every year that someone managed to pick up on the timeline. “You’re right,” he said with a sharp nod. “However, you’re also wrong.” He smiled, just so she’d know that he wasn’t about to yell. “No one knows how long the Enheduanna poems were actually circulating around before they were transcribed. You all know the Epic of Gilgamesh was written a few hundred years after the Bible says the Jews moved out of Mesopotamia, and it’s one of the earliest written records we have at all. Like Hannah just informed you,” he said, flicking his gaze across the classroom, “Enheduanna’s even younger than that.” 

Theo flipped to the next slide. “However. We also don’t know how long it took for the sexual laws to come into play, even if we disregard the fact that the Bible could have been written up to a couple millennia later. There’s evidence that they weren’t actually a later divergence from Sumerian customs, but a direct reaction to them.” He clicked on the embedded video link he’d put in the slide to pull it up. “This is a clip from a very good documentary that’ll explain some opposing viewpoints to you guys a lot more succinctly than I can.” 

The documentary clip took up about ten minutes, during which a dozen or so more students slipped in through the door, most of them shamefaced, and took standing positions in the back of the classroom. Theo could swear that some of the kids looked kind of disappointed when he put another clip on after a few minutes of discussion following the first one. Well, what did they expect? He’d been teaching the lecture this way for a few years; surely some of them had believed what the previous students had to say. 

“Okay,” he said when the second clip had finished, and turned the lights back up, since he’d only dimmed them so the students could see the screen better. “I’d like to take some time now to talk about the contents of the Cooper reading. Yes, you.” One of the girls in the back had raised her hand as soon as he said ‘Cooper.’ “You’re not in this class, are you?” 

“My roommate is taking it,” she said. “I did the reading with her. Dr. Derensky, I got confused about the timeline, too. Like what…Hannah, right? Um, what she said earlier. Is it really accurate for early Mesopotamia if Cooper keeps talking about the Greeks? I, um…I noticed all the actual observations of the behavior were a lot later. The stuff about language was mostly from isolated archaeological finds, right?” 

Theo put an elbow on the podium and rested his chin on his hand. A few students snickered. “Yes, it was,” he said. “Herodotus also was very biased, and he also wrote from a Greek-centric viewpoint. It’s possible he only observed women in the area who had become more Hellenistic if he was telling the truth at all, since he talks about Greek gods. You probably noticed that he talked about how gross Babylonian behavior was, too.” The girl nodded. “And the rest of you?” More nods. “The thing to remember about the Akkadian and Sumerian cultures, and keep in mind that both of them were using the Akkadian language - they went back much farther than the dawn of Judaism. The time period those documentary clips talked about was really more middle Mesopotamia than early.” 

He paged through a few more slides. The lecture was going to be a little out of order now, but he thought it would still be cohesive. “Here’s a good review of what we went over last week,” he said, hovering the mouse pointer over the chart he’d put in the slide. “Enheduanna is part of the Second Ur Dynasty, a few hundred years before the Akkadian Empire fell. Over here, you’ll see a more generalized timeline for Mesopotamia. Provided the Bible is historically accurate, who can tell me when the Jews are supposed to have left Ur?” 

Ahmed raised his hand. “Jemdet Nasr.” 

“Right,” Theo said. “And if laws against common sexual customs came about at that time and Herodotus was still going on about them twenty-five hundred years later, what does that tell you?” He didn’t wait for any of the confused faces to brighten, because that would take more time than was allotted for the class. Instead, he pointed at the girl in the back. “It means that your colleague pointed out something that seems like a discrepancy, but really isn’t. Erotic writings and customs, especially in the temples, _remained_ customs for thousands of years, even when the cultures changed dramatically. Cooper did say that Herodotus might have been full of it, though.” 

“Did that inform any conceptions of the Middle East?” asked a boy a few rows back without raising his hand. 

Theo shrugged. “No one can say that for sure. It’s difficult to say if ancient customs turned into the images we have today without getting into racism. The harem idea is a good example of how knotty that is. Knotty with a ‘k’, I’m not talking about dirty pictures.” He clicked on another clip link. “Actually, this next one talks about whether or not modern ideas about sex have skewed the way we view Akkadian records, so you can enjoy more historians arguing with each other.” 

This clip was about fifteen minutes, so while the students watched it, Theo took out his phone to see if Bill had texted him – he had the phone set to silent for texts, just so he wouldn’t get interrupted in a meeting or in class. Sure enough, Bill said that the woman was blonde and medium-height, and she would be wearing a purple coat and black jeans. Easy enough to recognize. Theo also took the opportunity to play a few games of Fruit Ninja, but that was neither here nor there. 

A hand went up as soon as the documentary finished. “Yeah?” Theo said as he flipped the lights back on. “Question?” 

“Would these customs have happened while Queen Esther was alive?” This came from someone standing in the back, a young-looking male student. “Like in that T.D. Darrens book? It’s called _Hanging Gardens_.” 

The others immediately started babbling in agreement. “Have you read that one?” someone called out, but Theo couldn’t figure out who it was, since there were a hell of a lot of mouths moving. “It’s really good.” 

“And it’s historically accurate,” someone else said. 

“No, it isn’t,” Theo said bluntly. If he could have, though, he would have been grinning from ear to ear. Darrens inevitably got brought up at least three times every semester, and it was always fun as hell to mess with the kids by pretending to be a grouchy historian about him. “Whatever Darrens says about Esther is crap. I don’t care how much research they did. Historical fiction is popular, but the real stuff doesn’t sell books.” 

Hannah started to raise her hand, then seemed to think better of it and just asked, practically shaking with excitement, “Have you ever met T.D. Darrens? Do they go to academic conferences – oh, right, and I heard Darrens is a woman! That should narrow it down.” 

A few students agreed, and Theo nodded with his best serious expression on. “I heard that, too,” he said. “Probably why that book got so many shit reviews. People’ll say they like historical fiction all they want, but as soon as it’s about a woman by a woman, wham, chick lit.” It wasn’t one of his better works, to be honest. He’d still had fun watching Danny throw conniption fits over what he saw as undeserved slander. 

“But were the _customs_ right?” the first student persisted. 

“I have no idea.” Yes, they were. “They wouldn’t have been exactly the same, anyway. The Esther story takes place in a completely different part of the Persian Empire, and you’re looking at Zoroastrianism, which would’ve been a different cultural mindset.” 

Theo let the students lob a few more questions at him before he crossed his arms and rolled his eyes so he’d look fed up. “Can we please stop talking about Darrens books in my class? This is the history department,” he said, “not _creative_ writing.” Right on cue, everyone who’d peppered him with questions looked guilty. “Thank you. Now let’s get back the subject at hand. Where were we?” 

“I bet it’s you,” said someone else in the back. Fuck. British accent. What had Iggy been _saying?_ Or was it a lucky guess? God, he prayed it was that second one, and he prayed harder that no one else could see his whole body go stiff with fear. “Because you read the reviews and all.” 

Okay, so maybe it was some joke. He sighed and adjusted his glare accordingly. “First of all, I’m not French or wherever the hell that name came from. I’m just pissed that he or she or whatever beat me alphabetically, and I’m pissed that I get that question every stinkin’ year. My middle name starts with an S and if anything, that bastard copied off me.” He heard some giggles at that. “Are we done yet?” 

“Oh,” said the student. “Sorry to bother you, I just hoped…” She sounded crestfallen, and for a second, Theo was sorry to falsely burst her bubble. Looked like it was just a kid asking questions after all. 

He smiled. “I publish under my own name,” he said. That was true, too, since tenure required you to publish or perish, as the saying went. Omitting that he _also_ published under Darrens wasn’t a crime. “And I don’t write crap. Let’s move on.” 

The rest of the lecture went off without, thank God, any more questions to nearly give Theo a heart attack. Half a dozen students clustered around the podium to talk to him when he dismissed everyone, and much to his amusement, he heard two girls arguing at the door as he turned to listen to the first student’s question. 

“You’re kidding,” one of them said vehemently. “Darrens knows everything about fighting.” 

“I’m not talking about a _fight_ ,” her friend said. “Dr. D. versus Darrens, wet T-shirt contest. Who’d win?” 

“Oh,” said the first girl. “Okay. Yeah, I bet Darrens is really fat, like Cassandra Clare.” Then the door closed, presumably so that their conversation could continue in the hall. 

Theo allowed himself one snort, which he passed off as a cough to the kids, and bowed out after fifteen minutes of conversation (no, they were not in fact allowed to ask about honey as a preservative because they weren’t covering ancient Egypt until the end of the semester – how could kids be so smart and so boneheaded at the same time?). He stopped at his office to put his coat on and retrieve the rest of his stuff, and then headed out into the cold late-afternoon wind with wallet in hand to meet his interviewer. The least he could do was buy her coffee, if she was nice enough to come right from the hospital.

She was as easy to find as he’d hoped, sitting on one of the benches just inside the entrance. “Hi, are you Theo?” she asked as soon as he entered. “Sorry, I’d stand up, but I’m still kind of wobbly.” 

“No problem,” he said, and came over to shake her hand. “Theo Derensky. I hope my partner didn’t withhold juice or whatever until you agreed to do this.” 

Her eyes widened and she let out a short laugh. “No, no, it was really my idea. I’m Ellen Danaher, by the way. I write for Inside Voice.” 

Now it was Theo’s turn to laugh. He kept it from being a bellow only by sheer force of will. “Is that for real?” 

“Yes, it’s real. It started out as a magazine for parents, but it branched into more of a human-interest thing a few years ago. Hold on a second.” Ellen slowly got up from the bench, wincing. “Sorry again,” she said. “I just had knee surgery two days ago. If I weren’t busy all the rest of this week, I wouldn’t make you deal with it today.” 

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “The café in here is just on the other side of the atrium. Want to take my elbow? I promise, I can handle being a walking stick.” 

He mostly expected her to refuse, but she smiled and nodded instead. “That’d be great.” She took his elbow and they slowly walked over the café, which emitted delicious smells that made Theo’s stomach rumble. How long had it been since he had lunch, five hours? And it had just been a sandwich, the contents of half a pomegranate, and some carrots that Bill packed him the night before. It was time for some coffee and a scone or five. 

One of the semi-private tables by the window was free, and there were relatively few students in here, not unexpected for a Thursday. The ones who had class tomorrow were probably in their dorms studying, and the lucky ones who didn’t have three-times-a-week classes had to be out drinking already. “Is this table okay?” Theo asked, and helped her sit down when she nodded. “I’m going up for coffee. You want anything? It’s on me.” 

“You sure about that?” Ellen stretched her arms over her head and shuddered. “Ugh, I hate cramps. Stupid hospital bed.” 

“Yeah, least I can do,” Theo told her.

She smiled at him. “Okay, then. Small coffee, or tall, or whatever they call it here, with a shot each of raspberry syrup and cinnamon syrup. That’ll hold me over.” 

“Okay.” He made a mental note to share his scones with her anyway. After he made their order and ended up getting three of the things, that went double, or else Bill would hand him his ass on a platter when he wasn’t hungry for dinner later. 

Ellen already had her computer out and was typing away when he got back to the table with their libations. “Interview stuff?” Theo said, mostly rhetorically. 

“Mm-hm.” She nodded and stopped typing to look at him. “Thanks for the coffee – is it okay if I call you Theo?” 

“Yeah, perfectly fine.” 

“Okay. Mmmm, that smells really good.” She took a sip of her coffee and closed her eyes happily. “This way I can actually pretend I’m ingesting some real fruit.” Another swallow, and she put the cup down on a napkin. “This is one I ask everyone. How old are you?” 

“Forty-three,” he said. 

“And what are your parents’ names, and when were they born?” 

He’d have been able to give those answers in his sleep. “Tuvia Derensky, born in 1930, and Rachel Derensky, born in 1935.” After a second of thought, he spelled the names out for her, too. 

She didn’t ask if either of them were still alive. Bill must have briefed her on that factoid. “So can you give me a little background on your family?” 

Theo took a bite of scone and held up a finger. Everyone always got mad at him when he talked with his mouth full. “My parents were both concentration-camp survivors,” he said when he’d finished the bite. “My dad first got taken in…I think it was 1942. He hadn’t turned twelve yet. My mom spent most of the war in hiding with a Gentile family, but she went to Ravensbrück in 1944. She was nine.” 

“Wow,” Ellen said, and began to type again. “Don’t worry, I’m still listening, just taking notes. Where did you say your father was held?” 

“Buchenwald,” Theo said. “He and his father were separated from my grandmother for the transport, so they never learned where she went. My grandfather Theodor died about a year in.” Some strange shit had occurred in his life, but this conversation was still a bit like an out-of-body experience, one he’d never envisioned having. Talking to Bill had probably loosened his tongue more than he’d thought, and anyway, this was for the kind of article that exhorted people never to let it happen again. 

She lifted her head, eyebrows furrowed and mouth open in an expression that could have been sadness or pity. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said. “Do you mind if I ask if it was disease? A lot of the research I did indicated that that happened with longer confinements in the camps.” 

Theo shook his head. Papa’s father had been relatively young and very healthy, going from what Papa had divulged. If that goddamn Nazi had kept his fists to himself, there was every indication that the original Theodor would have survived Buchenwald, too. “It was a Nazi guard with a chip on his shoulder,” he answered. “Papa called him Azzo. He was patrolling at roll call one morning and he called my grandfather out of line because apparently his _nose_ was sticking out. Racist crap. And then he beat him to death.” 

Ellen stopped typing at that. “Oh my God, Theo. I’m…I’m so sorry.” The look on her face told him that she probably would have taken his hand if it wouldn’t violate journalistic integrity, which he appreciated. She seemed like that kind of nice person. “That’s horrible. And your dad…” 

“Had to watch, yeah.” There was a lump in his throat. Theo cleared it and took a gulp of coffee to disguise his growing desire to cry. 

“Are you named for your grandfather?” she asked, her voice gentle. 

This topic was slightly easier to speak about without making tears spill out. “I am,” Theo said. “Papa told me once that he and Mama agreed the first kid would get named after his dad, because Mama didn’t remember her family all that well and Papa missed my grandfather the rest of his life. I would’ve been Theodora if I was a girl.” 

Ellen smiled. “That’s adorable.” She moved her hands back to the keyboard, where they began to clatter again. “Do you mind if I ask what happened to, uh…Azzo? I’m pronouncing that right, right?” Theo nodded. “Okay, did he go to the Nuremberg trials or anything?” 

Theo let out the sardonic smile that always made him look like a major bastard, in Dee’s opinion. This warranted it, though. “He never made it that far,” he said. “There was a death march a few days before the camp got liberated, but Papa didn’t get forced to go on it. This was in 1945, April, so Papa always said it was a Passover miracle that the prisoners rose up and overthrew the guards. Azzo…he sort of got torn apart. Papa was one of the people who did it. It wasn’t pretty.” 

Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth opened, then closed. “Wow,” she finally said. “He…wow. And he was what, thirteen?” 

“Fifteen,” Theo said. “No, wait, almost fifteen. Don’t think it didn’t almost kill him to do it, either. Killing Azzo was one of the things he had what I’m pretty sure was PTSD over. He never got diagnosed, but he woke up screaming a lot.” 

Ellen’s gaze had migrated back to her computer screen. “So he never got any therapy for it?” 

As far as Theo knew, Papa hadn’t set foot in a therapist’s office even once in his entire life, as much as Mama begged him to do it when he got into his fifties and still had those nightmares. But maybe it wouldn’t have helped. He was already losing his recent memory by then. “No, never. Kind of ironic, since my mom was a psychologist. She couldn’t work with him, but she had a bunch of colleagues who could’ve. She saw kids in her practice, anyway.” He grabbed the cinnamon scone and pinched off a piece. It was still warm and still delicious. 

“Neither of your parents are still alive, then,” Ellen said, and took a piece of the chocolate scone for herself. 

He drank some more of his coffee. “No. Papa died of Alzheimer’s in ’91, and Mama had congestive heart failure for a while. Died about eight years after he did.” 

“How old were they when they died?” 

Theo took a few seconds to calculate. “Papa was sixty-one,” he said, “and Mama was sixty-four. She was five years younger than Papa.” 

“Oh, that’s kind of weird that they died so young,” and then she grimaced. “Sorry, that wasn’t necessary.” 

He chuckled and rested his elbows on the table. All the crumbs from previous students made his elbows hurt through his sleeves, but it wasn’t a big deal. “You’re right. They _were_ young to die. I know Alzheimer’s is genetic, but maybe Papa’s brain got messed up from being in the camps. For Mama, it was definitely because of that, because the war and the camps meant she didn’t get fed right while she was growing up.” A thought occurred to him and he grinned. “That’s probably why Mama and Papa were both so shrimpy. Dinah and I are both freaks of nature compared to them.” 

“Is Dinah your sister?” Ellen asked. 

“Yup,” he said. “Eight years younger. That’s spelled D-I-N-A-H.” Was he brave enough to talk about Forrest here? It would be dishonest if he didn’t, he decided. This interview was about his parents, and they had, after all, had three children. “My brother was tall, too, but he was skinny like the rest of us weren’t. Forrest, with two Rs.” 

She lifted her drink and looked up from her computer screen. “You said ‘was.’” Her voice took on that soft tone again. “What happened to him? Did your parents’ physical issues affect him?” 

Physical issues and mental issues, too, although he was sure they didn’t come from Mama or Papa. To tell the whole story, Theo knew he’d have to go all the way back to when Forry was a kid, hitting his cheeks when they were full of food and screaming ‘Animal House!’, unable to concentrate at school, so itchy-footed that even staying out until the streetlights came on at 9 PM in the summer wasn’t enough for him. “School wasn’t for him,” he said, a lot like he’d told Bill nearly two years ago. “I’m pretty sure he had ADHD. He ran off to join the IDF right after he graduated from high school, and he stepped on a land mine about a week out from basic training.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said, and thankfully didn’t make the comment that Theo would have made in her situation, that his family sounded like something out of a soap opera. “How did your parents take it? Did they feel responsible? Not that it’s a bad thing to join the IDF, I just wonder about the patriotism aspect.” 

“They didn’t have much of anything to do with his decision,” Theo said. “This was 1991. Papa heard about it and then he forgot. And then he died a few months after that.” In the rare times during those few months when he was still lucid enough to even speak instead of mumble, he’d sometimes called Theo by his brother’s name, even though they looked nothing alike. Forrest had had sandy brown hair like Mama’s, a few shades darker than Phil’s. “Mama didn’t take it well, but she was taking care of Papa with me.” 

Ellen pursed her lips, pausing to take a sip of her coffee and then tapping a finger against her chin, probably deciding on how to say what she wanted as diplomatically as possible. “That must have been difficult for all of you.” 

An understatement, but at least it was a polite one. “Yeah, it was. He relived almost all of what he went through during the war. That’s actually how I found out a lot of it.” Aside from his nightmares and his assertions that the Nazis has taken children who acted similarly when any of them were bratty, Papa had been closed-mouthed about Buchenwald before he got sick. 

“And your mother?” she asked, fingers flying. 

Theo shrugged. “She wasn’t in as long. I heard a lot from Dee after she died, though.” Ellen would have to drag him under a school bus to get it out of him, too. The things that nearly happened to Mama before the liberation weren’t going into any journalist’s ears, even if it was off the record. “She told me the family who kept her in hiding turned her in for money and food. She was in…you know what, I’m not sure. Shifting borders.” Mama could have been from Russia or Poland or the Ukraine or, hell, New Zealand for all he knew. “Anyway, they were so poor they were about to starve to death, and they couldn’t resist.” 

“So do you feel any antipathy toward the family for that?” Ellen took another gulp of her coffee and made a face. “Oh, god, it’s congealed.” 

“Should’ve gone with a double cup,” Theo teased. “As for your question, not really. Not when I get past the fact that they turned in _my_ mother.” She nodded, and he went on. “They were poor. Between the Nazis and the Russians, everything was razed to shit. I mean, it was turn her in or die.” He’d hated them for the longest time, but he’d been a kid then. In college, around the same time as he started seeing things in more than teenage black and white – and took some history courses – his opinion changed. 

“That’s an interesting point of view,” she said. “I was expecting more…anger on your part.” She looked at the screen again. “Okay,” she said with a laugh, “I’ve gotten _way_ off track with my interview questions, sorry. All right, we know where your mother is from…how about your father?” 

“No problem. Czechoslovakia. _Former_ Czechoslovakia, I should probably say.” He took what was left of the chocolate-chip scone and polished it off. Damn, that was good pastry. “Actually, you mind if I tell you how they met? It’d probably make a good human-interest angle for the really human-interest article.” 

Ellen snorted and paused long enough to eat half the cranberry scone, which Theo hadn’t touched yet. What had he been thinking to buy it? He _hated_ fruit in his baked goods. “You’re good at this for someone with no journalism training,” she said when she was done eating. 

He shrugged, and echoed her snort. “I’ve been in academia for fifteen years. I know the difference between what gets published in journal articles and what gets published in magazines.” Whenever someone in the Anthro department got written up for a new discovery, everyone in the department rejoiced, because at least it was closer to history than to math or some shit. “My parents met in a DP camp after the war ended. Papa was fifteen, Mama was ten. There weren’t a lot of other kids in the camp, so they bonded really hard, and the same American ended up sponsoring them to come over here.” 

“Hmm.” She looked at him and smiled. “You’re right, that’s adorable. I might have to fight my bosses a little, but I’ll try my best to keep it in the article. Okay, interview questions. Lemme think a minute.” Her fingers drummed on the table. 

“Actually,” said Theo, “I have one for you. You mind if I ask what happened to your knee.” 

“My knee?” Ellen looked down, like she’d forgotten her knee was even there. “Oh. Funny story. I tripped over my dog at the top of the steps because I was trying to avoid stepping on him when he got in my way, and my leg was bent to the side already, and then I crashed into the banister. I ended up blowing out my ACL.” She shook her head and gave a short laugh. “I’m probably the only person ever who didn’t do that playing a sport.” 

Theo raised his eyebrows. “Jeez. I hope you’re feeling okay,” he said. Dinah had made Phil join middle-school lacrosse this year on the grounds that it would keep him from acting like such a sulky teenager, and the kid played like a maniac. He wouldn’t be surprised if he got a call about his nephew sustaining a similar injury one of these days. “I’m pretty honored you met with me, then.” 

“Yeah,” she said. “Hold on, my stomach’s growling.” She drank a few more gulps of coffee and finished off the second half of the cranberry scone, then rubbed her stomach. “Much better. Yeah, you’re my last interview. I need to have this thing written by the day after tomorrow so it can come out on Monday. That’s why my schedule’s so packed after this.” 

“Emergency surgery, right?” he said. 

“Right. I had plenty of time and then I fell down the stairs. They only extended my deadline by one day.” She rolled her eyes and then kissed the pad of her middle finger, making Theo laugh. “That’s what I’d say to them if I could.” 

“Wait, your dog’s okay, right?” 

Ellen’s smile widened. “He’s fine. Still an idiot.” 

“Bill says that about me.” Theo winked at her and looked out the window. The sun had set while they talked, and it was dark outside, lit by the campus streetlights and lights through the windows of the science buildings, which stayed open until ungodly hours so the nerds could keep working. “So do you have more questions? Bill doesn’t mind if I stay out a while.” 

“Well,” she said, “keep in mind that I’m not going to use everything you say. But since you asked…let me see.” She took another look at her computer screen. “This one I’m on the fence about, but it’s pretty relevant to your situation. Do you think that your childhood was different from your peers’ because of what your parents went through, and how?” 

Theo didn’t even have to think about that. “My dad had nightmares,” he said. That was all the detail he was going to give, though. Just like Mama’s past, some things were personal. “And I think he was more affected than Mama was. He was at least as smart as she was, could’ve gone into whatever he wanted, and he ended up as a house painter.” Not that he was bashing anyone who chose that job, but the job wasn’t for Papa. He came home from work frowning too many times. “I know he would’ve been diagnosed with PTSD if he’d let a shrink look at him. I think I already said that.” 

“And that affected you, too?” 

“It’d wake us up. Mama had to talk him down sometimes when they were really bad.” Mama’s damage was quieter, even if it wasn’t something he was prepared to talk about. She went silent whenever she saw a mention of rape on TV, or saw kids – especially little girls – dressed up in sexualized stuff. Dinah hadn’t dated until Vince mostly because she had been an awkward kid, but he didn’t think she would have brought any boys home even if she had dated in middle or high school, just out of respect for Mama. 

“Okay.” Ellen typed a few more words, then shut her computer. “I think that’s about it for the interview,” she said. “Oh – wait.” Bending down, she took a paper out of her bag. “Sorry, forgot to have you sign the consent form. Here’s a pen.” 

Theo scanned the form, which was boilerplate and didn’t look like it gave the magazine the right to do anything particularly personal to him. “Sure,” he said, and signed and dated the space at the bottom. “Thanks for meeting with me. You need a ride home or anything?” Was it ethical for an interviewee to give an interviewer a ride home? Well, fuck it, he wasn’t about to leave her here in the cold. 

She took the form and her computer and put them in her bag. “No, thanks,” she said. “My husband’s picking me up. I gave him directions before you got here.” Snapping the bag closed, she put it in her lap and smiled at Theo. “Thank you so much for meeting with _me_ , Theo. Most of my interviews were with survivors, but I did a few with their kids and you have a perspective that’s really valuable for readers.” 

“I’m honored,” Theo said. “Since we’re off the record, you want to get out any complaints about Bill before I leave? I bitch about him all the time, don’t worry.” 

Ellen eased herself to her feet and put her bag over her shoulder. “Well, he woke me up at all hours to take my vitals,” she said. “I wasn’t very happy with him. Dark circles aren’t a good look on me.” 

“They’re not a good look on anyone. He do anything else to you? Spill water on you, maybe? I live with the guy.” Bill needed some ribbing, anyway. “I can seriously intervene for you if he pissed you off.” 

That made her laugh. “Nah, he was very professional,” she said. “I only found out about you because I was bored and I asked him to talk about himself.” 

Theo pretended to think that over, with a finger on his chin and his mouth pursed. “I _guess_ he can’t get written up for that,” he said. “Okay, I’ll see you around, if you’re sure you don’t need a ride. Where should I look to find the article on Monday?” 

“Assuming it all goes according to schedule, just look up ‘Inside Voice Magazine’ online,” Ellen replied. “We work crazy weekend hours, so it’ll be up before noon. I hope you like it.” 

“I’m sure I will,” he assured her. She’d taken the time to interview him and he’d been able to tell that she was actually _listening_. This was no yellow journalist with a ‘press’ sticker in her hat, that was for sure. Even if she didn’t use a word he’d said, he’d still be grateful. “If you want, just contact me at my university email. I’m Theodor –“ he made sure to pronounce it carefully, _tay-oh-dor_ \- “that’s T-H-E-O-D-O-R, like Herzl, Derensky with a Y. I’m the first thing that pops up on Google.” 

She promised him that she would, and they went their separate ways, Theo driving into the early-evening darkness to find that Bill had made pot roast. It was an excellent end to the day, and an even better beginning to the weekend than he’d hoped for – he counted himself among those lucky people who had a constant three-day weekend, since he only taught the one class on Friday. 

The resulting weekend sex and pleasantly warm weather on both Saturday and Sunday distracted Theo to the point that he pretty much forgot he’d given the interview. Noah and Dwight came over to have Saturday dinner and play video games, which was always pleasant, and they brought their new dog. Chazzer, named as a counterpart to Trayf, was an adorable pit bull whom Noah had found in someone’s yard with a collar digging into her neck, and she scared the shit out of Rug. It was awesome. 

But on Monday, the sudden reminder he got jolted him back into remembering. His week began the same way the last one had ended: with a phone call in his office, this one after his class but before the faculty meeting that Dr. Ventura, the department head, had scheduled a while back. This time, though, he was grading the weekly freshman assignments and in no fucking mood to be disturbed. “Yeah?” he said shortly into the phone when it rang. 

“Yeah to you, too,” said his sister. “Danny’s about to shit a brick.” 

Theo tangled his fingers in his hair, already a bird’s nest after half an hour of grading, and let out a low chuckle. “What else is new?” He looked at the clock – 1:15 PM, way after Dee’s normal lunchtime ended. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” 

“They’re not gonna suffer if I’m on the phone for half an hour. Anyway, this is important.” He could just see her sitting on the fire escape outside the accounting firm where she worked, doing the little move that amused only her where she pretended to be smoking a cigarette on days when it was cold enough for her breath to be visible. “So your article came out.” 

It took a minute for his brain to snap out of academic mode, where “article” meant a peer-reviewed journal article; it had been a while since he’d published one of those. “What ar - _oh!_ ” he said, cutting himself off. “The Holocaust survivor thing?” She’d been telling the truth about the four-day turnaround time, then. Not bad for such a weighty subject. “What’s it say about me?” 

“Just a minute,” Dee said. “I printed out a copy.” She paused long enough for him to hear pages shuffling. “Okay, here we go. _Theodor Derensky, a Boston-area resident and son of deceased concentration-camp survivors Tuvia and Rachel Derensky, is hardly unique among survivors and their children in knowing what happened to his family in Europe. However, he is one of the few survivors’ children to be able to say in graphic detail how his grandfather died. According to Derensky, in his father’s final months before an early death of Alzheimer’s disease, he revealed that his own father, also named Theodor, had been pulled out of a lineup in Buchenwald and beaten to death by a camp guard named Azzo for petty reasons.”_

Dinah’s voice dropped a few tones when she read the next part. “ _In revenge, days before the camp was liberated, then fourteen-year-old Tuvia and his fellow survivors killed Azzo - a process that Derensky, forty-three, described as “not pretty” and which had a long-term impact on his father’s psyche. Today, Tuvia Derensky would likely be diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, but his son claims he never allowed a mental-health professional to examine him before his death in 1991._ ” 

That was…graphic. Honest, but graphic. Theo couldn’t really fault Dee for calling him over it. “Wow,” he said. “Jesus, Dee, I didn’t know she was going to write it word for word. Did I upset you?” 

“Well,” she answered with a sigh, “I didn’t know about it before the article.” 

So not only did she not know he was getting interviewed, she also wasn’t aware of the material. He hated himself more and more with every passing moment. “Fuck.” Slowly, he put his elbows down on the desk and pressed his forehead against the wood between them, bringing the receiver with him. His neck screamed in pain. “I’m so sorry. Do you…do you want me to ask her to take it down?” It wouldn’t happen, he knew, but empty words were better than none at all. 

“No, of course not.” His sister’s voice was still quiet, although she didn’t sound angry. “I said I didn’t know, not that I’m shocked. Danny’s the one who’s practically spitting up blood. He’s convinced you’ve compromised your anonymity, but don’t worry, I did damage control. Told him he’s full of shit.” 

“Oh, he is,” said Theo. “Don’t worry, he does this about everything. The man’s a car alarm. He freaked out when you put a Happy 40th Birthday ad in the paper for me. What else are people saying?” 

“I got a joint email from Omer and Gad, saying they’re proud of you,” Dinah replied. “Let’s see, Dwight called and said to high-five you. Danny took up an hour of my time. I don’t think I’ve heard anything else…oh, except I got a very interesting call from the school counselor, who read the article and now wants to talk to my sons about their feelings.” 

Theo stuck his tongue out at the receiver, which was lying next to his head, and accidentally licked it in the process. He’d seen the school counselor once before when he drove Dee and the boys to parent-teacher conferences after work, and once was enough. The guy looked exactly like Mr. Mackey from South Park and had the obsequious manner to go with it. “What’d you say?” 

Dinah blew a raspberry, which was funny as shit because there was no way she could know he’d done almost the same thing. “I told him to fuck off.” 

“Really?” 

“ _No_ , you moron. I told him I don’t think there’s any danger today. I mean, how many kids are going to read _Inside Voice_ when they’re messing around during class? It’d be more of a risk if it was published on Neopets or Facebook or whatever they’re reading these days.” 

“Someone’ll eventually send it their way,” Theo pointed out. Now he just felt guilty. He should have just told Bill no. 

“Yeah, _eventually_.” Dinah’s sigh was weary. “Look. _I_ haven’t even gotten my feelings about that article organized yet. I’m not letting some guy I don’t even know and who’s never even met my kids, by the way, blindside them with leather-couch, how-do-you-feel-about-that stuff before I have a chance to talk to them. Or warn them about tact.” 

He had to admit, she had the counselor to a T. Dinah never bragged about her people skills and she hadn’t gone into a particularly social profession, but there were times like this when she just made him shake his head with the precise _burn_ of her observations. “So when _are_ you gonna tell them?” he asked. “And what’s Boaz’s opinion on everything?” 

“Boaz is at work,” she said. “I’ll talk to him about it when I get home. I…I need time to think about it first, you know, how I’m going to put it.” 

Theo shrugged, which pushed the top of one of his shoulders into a drawer pull. He hissed through his teeth and sat back up, since clearly this position wasn’t conducive to continued good health. “That’s smart. Sorry, my desk tried to attack me.” 

“Isn’t that always how it goes?” said Dinah dryly, rhetorically. “Actually, that reminds me. Phil has kiddie lacrosse after school today. Caleb doesn’t have anything better to do, so he said he wanted to stick around and do his homework until practice was done. You mind picking them up after? It’s over at seven and that’d give me time to talk to Boaz first.” 

“Sure. No problem.” It was the least he could do after dropping a bomb on the family like this. 

“By the way, Theo,” she said, a smirk in her voice, “want to know the real reason I warned the school counselor off?” 

“Why?” he asked. 

“Because realistically, the first thing that’s going to come out of their mouths when they read the article is ‘Aw, yeah, our grandpa was a badass!’ and I don’t want ‘em getting the Noah treatment from some bean counter with a zero-tolerance policy.” Dinah snickered. “There’s a reason I said I want to talk to them about tact.” 

“Don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself,” Theo said. It was probably a character flaw of his to overestimate how well kids, especially the ones who were related to _him_ , could keep their mouths shut. Probably his own fault for only teaching the older ones who no longer considered themselves kids. “Lacrosse practice is just at their school, right?” 

“Yeah, in the field. The parking lot’s right there, you can probably just wait in the bleachers. That’s what I do.” 

“Would it be okay if I took them out for ice cream or something after?” he said. “I know it’s before dinner, but you said you wanted time to talk to Boaz and…” 

“No,” she interrupted, “it’s a good idea. Go ahead, just no huge sundaes. I’ll see you later, then?” 

“Yeah. Love you, Dee.” 

“Love you, too, Theo,” she said, and then just as he was about to hang up, “Wait, I forgot something! Don’t hang up yet.” 

“What’s up?” 

“Phil’s been talking about showing one of your swords to his lacrosse friends and he won’t shut up about it. You mind? Just don’t let them touch it and the coach will probably be fine with it.” 

Kids and swords. Theo hadn’t really understood the appeal until he was older, which he supposed meant either that he was a reverse kid or that he was aging backwards. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll just keep it in the sheath. Is that it?” 

“Yep. Thanks, Theo, you’re a real sport.” 

“You, too. Love you.” 

“You, too,” she said, “talk to you later.” There was a click, and then he heard the dial tone. 

Theo checked the clock. It was only 1:30 and his class started in half an hour, and after fifty minutes, he’d be free. From what he understood, and had heard Phil complaining about before, school got out at three, but practice didn’t start until four so the kids would have time to get some of their homework done. Phil would prefer that it started right away so he didn’t have to stay until seven. In his position, Theo thought he would have preferred the same. 

It probably wasn’t worth it to go home after class, he decided. Bill wasn’t off-shift yet and being around the TV and his home computer would just distract him. He was already a little behind with the freshman grading; they met tomorrow and he had promised to have their writing assignments back by then. All right, so he’d stick around and do his grading near the _slow_ computer in his office (it couldn’t run Netflix), and then he’d stop at home just long enough to get a sword before heading over to the school. 

With that schedule in place to his satisfaction, he turned back to his pile of loose-leaf paper, some pieces cleaner and less wrinkled than others, and set to the rest of his afternoon. 

Introduction to Modern Warfare was his favorite class to teach, followed at a very close second by Early Middle Eastern History, and in today’s session, the most fun thing was watching his students’ faces. It was a fast-paced class, starting with the earliest known techniques and moving all the way up to the clusterfuck that, to be honest, was still going on in Iraq. Today was the first of two classes on biological and chemical warfare. That meant that he got to talk about throwing corpses over battlements to his heart’s content and watch everyone’s face turn green. 

If he felt a little schadenfreude when the tallest, bulkiest, crew-cuttedest guy in the class excused himself to “go to the bathroom,” that was his prerogative, too. 

No one bothered him in his office after class. Although he had his office door open, the dreaded Monday Disease prevented students from flocking to it like they sometimes did. The only notable interaction happened ten assignments in, when a familiar voice interrupted him. “So did Bill kick you out already?” 

Theo shook his hair out of his eyes and turned his eyes to the doorway. Of course - _Randy_. He had a wife and kid, and he still chose to spend his afternoon hanging around and bothering him. “What’s up, Morningwood? I’m busy.” 

“Nothing, just checking in on you.” Randy’s mouth curved into a smirk and he crossed his arms, leaning his beanpole body against the doorjamb. “Believe me, I have better things to do with my time. I just want to make sure you haven’t done anything drastic out of boredom.” 

Well, he wasn’t bored now. Randy was a dick and a half, but their little talks were good for livening up a dull hour. “Eh, fuck off,” Theo said without any bite in his voice. They’d said far worse to each other. “Go grade papers or something. That’s what I’m doing.” 

“I guess I need to fuck off, then, don’t I? The Great Derenskini has spoken.” Randy rolled his eyes and whirled around, platinum hair flying, then turned back with a hand on the jamb. “Hey, I keep meaning to ask, how’s your nephew doing?” 

Theo looked up again. “Which one?” 

“The one my son likes. Gamil? Galil?” Randy flicked a piece of hair out of his face. “I keep mixing it up.” 

“Galil, yeah,” Theo said. “He’s not my nephew, just as good as. We’re not actually related.” He scratched his beard. “And he’s doing fine. Just turned eleven a little while ago. How’s your kid doing, by the way? I don’t think I’ve heard about him in a while.” Galil hadn’t mentioned him at Hillel, anyway, and for a few months he’d been all Galil could talk about. 

Randy nodded. “Galil, then. And Luukas is fine. You haven’t heard about him because he’s at a new school. It keeps him pretty busy.” 

Theo wasn’t about to make fun of him for that. Kids were neutral ground, even Morningwood’s, and he was sure the decision was sound. He didn’t get the impression that Randy was anything but a good parent, either, and after so much time spent working with teenagers – in some cases still reeling from households they didn’t like to talk about – he thought he was pretty good at sussing out problems. “Tell him Galil says hi,” he said. “And me, too.” 

“I will,” said Randy. “For Galil, not you. See you around.” 

“See you never,” said Theo, but Randy had already left. Bastard. With a snarl under his breath, Theo got up and shut his office door so no one else could be tempted to try to ruin his day. If Dr. Ventura needed him, then she could knock. 

Grading calmed him, as unpredictable, and in some cases funny, as the freshman responses could be. When he emerged from his lair, the sun had set and the scene beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows in the hallway was one of gray-blue dusk. He smiled and felt himself unwind; this was his favorite time of day, and seeing his nephews would be an even brighter spot in the dusk. 

Theo listened to NPR on the way home – a little boring, but it made him feel smart – and gave Bill, who had returned from work, a kiss on the cheek when he came into the kitchen and dropped his satchel on the floor. “Hey,” he said before Bill could greet him, “I’m just picking the boys up from Phil’s lacrosse practice. We’re going out for ice cream after. Anything fancy for dinner?” 

Bill didn’t look up from the cutting board, which was full of string beans. “ _Hello_ , Theo,” he said pointedly. “Good evening, Theo. You’re missing dinner, then?” 

“Yup,” Theo said. “Just grabbing a sword out of the armory. You want me to get my vegetables in, just leave a plate out. I’ll gulp ‘em down when I get back home.” Rug crawled out from somewhere, probably under the table, and rubbed up against Theo’s legs. He stooped to pet the soft fur between the cat’s ears. 

Now Bill turned around, his knife still in his hand. “Sword?” 

Theo pointed at the knife. “Put down the weapon, soldier, you’ll hurt yourself. Yeah, Dee said Phil wanted to show off my forge skills to some of his lacrosse buddies. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it in the scabbard.” 

“Yes, fine,” Bill said, “as long as you do.” He went back to chopping the string beans. “Dinner is stir fry. I’ll keep some warm for you.” 

Theo kissed him again, this time on the back of his neck. Bill squeaked, and goosebumps came up immediately – and visibly – on the skin there. “Love you.” 

“Yes, yes,” Bill said, rubbing his neck with a palm, “I love you, too.” 

Theo ate a piece of string bean off the cutting board, adeptly avoiding Bill’s knife, and then went to the armory (which was really just one of the spare bedrooms – he climate-controlled it with a dehumidifier and Dwight had once called it “the highlight of any history nerd’s house tour”), where his swords were either hanging on the wall or ensconced in cases under track lights. Apart from his books when he wasn’t beating himself up over them being crap, he considered these his best works of art. 

He went with a quilloned broadsword in a leather scabbard, since it seemed like the kind of thing that Phil and company would coo over due to how recognizable it was from everyone’s favorite movies. He’d forged it in a Middle Ages style partly for that reason, since he’d been thirty and still starry-eyed over the idea of chivalry. Hanging it from his shoulder by a leather strap, he took it back out to the car with a last stop to scratch Rug on the tummy in the front hall. Rug _prrrrr_ ed, and Theo considered staying to give him a full-on petting, but he knew the boys would be pissed if no one came to pick them up on time. 

It was nearly full dark outside as he drove to the school and parked in the lot. Out in the sports field, fluorescent-white lights illuminated the kids with their sticks and a lone figure who sat on the bleachers, dark-haired head bent over something. That had to be Caleb. The others, who had started to disperse and head out toward the edges of the field, had sticks over shoulders and phones to ears in a classic picture of the end of a long school day. 

Theo strapped the sword on again and made sure it was secure. Then he went over to the bleachers and tapped Caleb on the shoulder. His nephew looked up from knitting what looked like a scarf (Bill and Dwight, who turned out to have taught himself a few years ago, would be so proud). “Hey, Uncle Theo,” he said, shading his eyes. “Is it time to go already?” 

“Sure is,” Theo said. “Your mom said it was okay for me to take you and Phil out for ice cream. Where _is_ Phil, anyway?” 

Caleb pointed to the strip of dead grass that ran around the field, separating it from the parking lot. “Right there.” A clump of boys stood talking, one with his smartphone out. Probably showing the others porn or something – Theo would bet money on it. “Are you gonna go get him?” 

Theo patted him. “Yeah, just follow me down. I don’t want to have to climb back up here.” Fuck being forty-three. His knees were already angry at him and he’d only gone up four rows of bleachers. To sweeten the deal, he added, “You can get a double scoop.” 

“Wicked!” Caleb stood up and shoved his spare knitting needle into his pocket, where it stuck out precariously. “I’ll be right down, Uncle Theo.” 

Hand on his sword, Theo went back down the bleachers and came up behind the group of kids. “Phil,” he said, “your mom asked me to pick you up. I heard something about you wanting to show off my sword-forging skills?” 

“Uncle Theo!” Phil grinned from ear to ear, and _there_ was the nephew Theo had held after he was born. He knew Phil had to be in there somewhere, under that teenage attitude. “Guys,” Phil said, “this is my mom’s brother. I told you about him, remember? He forges swords.” 

“And horseshoes,” Theo said. “Okay, kids, I promised Phil’s mom I wouldn’t take this thing out of the scabbard, but have a look at the hilt.” He looped the strap over his shoulder and held the sword out, laid across the palms of both of his hands. 

There was a generalized murmur of _whoa_ from the assembled teenagers, and suddenly they all crowded around the sword, gawky hands touching the scabbard and the hilt. _Sweaty kid hands_ , Theo thought with an internal wince. Well, there were worse things. “You _made_ this?” asked one of the kids, short enough that he clearly hadn’t started his growth spurt yet. 

“Yep. It was…I don’t know, ten, twelve years ago.” Theo tilted the sword so that light shone off the designs on the leather sheath. “Friend made the scabbard for me, though. I’m no good at carving, so I probably would’ve taken a finger off if I tried.” 

Another one rubbed the tooled designs with two fingers. “It came out really good,” he said. “Do you ever use it for fights and stuff? My stepdad likes to go to Renaissance festivals and stuff and he watches sword fights there.” 

This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten that question. Why did everyone think he was some kind of career fighter in plate armor and a fancy helmet? The best guess he could come up with was that it was the hair, and possibly the beard. “No, I’m too busy,” he said, “but thanks for asking. What’s your name?” 

“Aiden.” 

“Okay, Aiden,” Theo said, “if your stepdad and…other parent?” Aiden nodded. “Okay, if and when they tell you you’re old enough, I can direct you to some people who sell safety swords if you feel like Renaissance festivals are your thing. Phil can give you my info.” 

Aiden showed him a silver smile ringed with rubber bands of some indeterminate neon color. “Thanks.” 

Theo nodded at him. “No problem.” He pressed the button on his watch that made the face light up – 7:10, and it was already fully dark out. “I need to take my nephews home now. It was nice meeting all of you.” No use telling them about the ice cream; it would just make them jealous. “Phil? Caleb? Grab your stuff and let’s go.” 

“Got it,” said Caleb from beside him. He had his backpack over his bony shoulders, knitting tucked away but the extra needle still sticking out of his pocket. 

“Oh, hey,” said Phil, as if just noticing that his brother existed. “Yeah, Uncle Theo, I have my stuff, too. Just my backpack and my stick.” 

“You don’t need to change your shoes?” Theo asked. With the stink Dinah had kicked up about how much it cost to replace Phil’s lacrosse cleats after he outgrew them a month into the sport, he didn’t think she’d like it if Phil ruined a second pair by being careless. 

Phil lifted a foot. “I already changed. They’re in my backpack.” His sneakers were filthy, but true to what he said, they didn’t have those little rubber spikes on them. 

Theo patted his back. “Thanks, Phil. All right, you two ready to go?” At seeing their nods, he lifted his sword – the highest level of nerdy uncle that the kids would accept, he suspected – and said “Onward.” 

“Uncle Theo’s gonna take us for ice cream,” Caleb said once they’d cleared the edge of the parking lot and begun heading towards the car. “And he said we can get double scoops!” 

“ _Sweet_ ,” Phil responded. 

Theo decided not to make the obvious pun, and instead said “I said _Caleb_ could get a double scoop. Not sure about you, Philly.” Phil frowned, and Theo immediately melted. Damn nephews. “Okay, fine, you both get double scoops. Give me your backpacks, I’ll put them in the trunk.” 

Phil and Caleb took their backpacks off and handed them over, Phil giving him his lacrosse stick as well. Theo looped a backpack over each arm and strode ahead of them (they were growing, but his legs were still longer, a point of private pride). “You can get sundaes if you want,” he said over his shoulder as he held his keys out, unlocking the car, and opened the trunk to put the backpacks in. “How about that?” 

No response, which was weird. “Phil?” he said. “Caleb?” Theo turned around to see why they weren’t playing along like they usually did, nerdy uncle or not. 

His nephews weren’t behind him anymore, but their screams were. 

“ _Uncle Theo!_ ” The scream was one of pure terror. “ _Help!_ ” Theo’s blood went cold. Under the streetlight, half a parking lot away, two hulking, _familiar_ figures had Phil and Caleb by the shirt collars. In their free hands, knives. 

“Phil!” he yelled. The backpacks dropped from his hands. “Caleb! I’m coming!” By instinct, he yanked his sword from its scabbard and charged forward as fast as he could. They _dared_ lay their hands on his nephews, and he would lay his sword across their necks. 

One of them put his hand around Caleb’s neck as he squirmed and twisted. Caleb cried out a loud, sickening choke of a gasp and thrust his hand forward, and now it was the skinhead’s turn to roar in pain. _Good boy, Caleb_. “Little kike!” the man shouted, and dropped him to double over his belly. 

Now Theo knew why they were here. He let out a snarl of fury and raised his sword over his head as his vision went blood-red, and that was the last thing he could remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The article and book that Theo set as reading assignments for his students are real. [This](http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/meapri) is the Meador reading, and you can download the Cooper article [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCUQFjABahUKEwjmiaK87fnHAhUI0IAKHUj7Aig&url=http%3A%2F%2Fneareast.jhu.edu%2Fpdf%2Fjcooper%2FSex%2520and%2520the%2520Temple%25202013.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE_sCwSthkFr-YiE3k4w77gQNskZA&sig2=-wfzFvNK2EPDZIvjuh8eDA&bvm=bv.102537793,d.cWw). The English section is at the bottom; just scroll down if you want to read it. 
> 
> I can be found at godihatethisfreakingcat . tumblr . com.


	16. Nor Awake My Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noah pays a visit to a building that gives him the creeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for the use of degrading language during sex, and graphic medical talk.

The door to Theo’s room was closed, but Bill had said that visiting hours were until 9 PM, so Noah raised his fist and knocked. “Come in,” said Dinah’s voice from inside. “He’s been asleep for a while.” 

“Okay,” said Noah, and came in, closing the door behind him. Theo lay in the bed in the center of the hospital room, eyes closed, his hair damp and spread out over a pillow. The lights were off, but a TV on silent provided some light to the room. Bill, sitting at Theo’s bedside, looked up at Noah and waved. “Hey, Bill,” Noah said with a wave of his own. “How’s it going?” 

Bill shrugged a little. “Well, they’ve got him out of the ICU, so that’s better than nothing,” he said. “He’s just a bit tired.” 

“Tired and being a pill,” Dinah corrected him, and stood up. “I was actually just leaving. The boys got discharged yesterday and they need me at home.” 

“Who’s taking care of them now?” Noah asked. 

Dinah frowned. “I thought he’d have told you,” she said. “Your brother’s watching them until I get back. They really need me, though. I’ve already been here for two hours.” 

Noah couldn’t blame her. In fact, he couldn’t think of a worse position to be in than hers. Her brother and both of her sons had all been in the hospital for almost a week and she probably felt like she was being pulled in three directions at once. She looked like it, too. It would be inaccurate to say that she looked like death warmed over, because to be honest, death could probably take fashion cues from _her_ at this point, with her hair escaping from a ponytail and circles under her eyes so dark that they looked like eye-black in the dim room. 

“You go on, Dinah,” said Bill. “Tell the boys I’ll visit them soon, and that we’re all very proud of them.” 

Morbid curiosity made Noah, after Dinah had thanked Bill for his consideration and left, ask “Why were they here so long? They didn’t need any surgeries, right?” The Hillel rumor mill had been disappointingly unclear on what exactly Theo and his nephews’ injuries were, since Dinah wasn’t talking and for once, neither was Boaz. 

“They each needed over a hundred stitches,” said Bill with a sigh, “and great whopping doses of piperacillin, amikacin, clindamycin, and metronidazole on top of all that so they wouldn’t get C-diff. Phil had a bugger of a concussion for a while, too. Caleb’s got bruises on his throat, looks like someone tried to have him hanged.” 

The sheer morbidity of that made Noah plop down in Dinah’s vacated chair. “Jesus,” he said. “Holy shit, _wow_.” Those injuries were more gruesome than he’d thought they’d realistically sustained. “And if Theo’s even worse…what the hell happened to _him?_ ” 

Bill looked from Noah to Theo and then back again. “Legally,” he said, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you this.” 

“Ah, come on, who am I gonna tell?” 

“Dwight.” 

“Ah- _ha_ ,” returned Noah, holding up his index finger like a knowledgeable mathematician on a TV drama, “you make an excellent point, but Dwight is a human statue. He won’t tell anyone.” 

Bill raised both eyebrows at him. Theo had once let slip that Bill couldn’t raise one eyebrow at a time like Theo himself could, and he’d said it in such a mushy tone that Noah couldn’t help but find it adorable by osmosis. “Oh, _fine_ ,” he said. “But I’ll beat your arse if you tell.” 

As if Bill could go up against Noah and his streetwise moves, or at least the ones Dwight didn’t laugh at when he demonstrated them. “Okay, talk.” 

“One of those bastards got him on the ground and kicked him in the abdomen,” Bill said. “That gave him internal bleeding and he almost got his xiphoid process broken off. That’s part of the breastbone,” he said, so Noah figured he must have had a confused look on his face. “His head hit the pavement, so he has a healing skull fracture. Then one of them came at him with the fucking _knife_. He had to get even more stitches than Phil and Caleb.” 

That explained the IV in Theo’s hand, then, and why Bill hadn’t been seen outside the hospital since Theo got hurt. “Oh my _God_ ,” he said. What else could he say? If it had been Dwight, Noah figured he probably would have mauled anyone who tried to keep him away. “That’s horrible. Are you okay?” 

Bill shook his head. “He had to have two surgeries,” he said. “They…they shaved part of his head. And I was so w-worried about what he’d – what he’d say to that when he woke up.” His voice wobbled, and even without the proper light to see by, Noah knew that there were tears filling his eyes. “Then they told me he’d be all right, and I…I think I almost fainted.” 

“Not in a coma, y’bastards,” Theo slurred from the bed, his eyes still closed. “Tha’you, Noah?” 

Noah scooted his chair closer; it screeched against the linoleum floor. “Yeah, it’s me,” he said. “How you doin’, Theo?” Up close, his injuries made his face look even more macabre. Red scars so new that they could probably still be considered cuts traversed his forehead and cheeks, splitting his thick eyebrows and reaching nearly to his upper lip. Noah guessed Theo had thrown a few cuts or punches himself before they had the chance to slice his chin and beard. 

“Nghh.” Theo shrugged a little against the bed and then grunted in pain. “Bill washed my hair,” he said, and a smile curved the corners of his mouth. “Crying. Mary friggin’ Magdalene with Jesus’s hair.” 

Bill reached out and took one of Theo’s hands in both of his own. “You absolute _prick_ ,” he said tenderly. Noah would have shot water out his nose if he had any, but since he didn’t, he settled for narrowly avoiding a choking fit from his own saliva. “I thought you were asleep for that.” 

“Was, ‘n you woke me up.” Theo yawned and slowly opened his eyes. “Where’s Dee?” 

“She was just leaving when I came in,” Noah said. “Something about leaving my brother to watch her kids, ‘cause I guess she didn’t have enough to freak out over.” Danny had probably driven those poor kids nuts in just two hours. A _cold_ had made him fuss over Noah enough to make Noah smoke a joint in his room with the window open, despite all the hacking it caused (and the resulting croup). Phil and Caleb were probably wishing that they’d hit their heads a little harder about now. 

Theo gave a tiny nod, probably the best he could do. “Sit me up, Bill?” he asked through another yawn. “Who turned the lights off?” 

Bill went to adjust the controls, and Theo (and his bed) slowly rose until he was reclining instead of outright lying down. “Dinah did that when you fell asleep the last time,” Bill said, “about half an hour ago. She thought it would help.” 

“Probably did.” Slower than Noah had ever seen it, so slowly it brought a cold pang of memory to his stomach – kid after injured kid in juvie, one blending into the other, so many shitty parents and guardians and feeders into the system who made them move like old men with beatings night after night – Theo lifted his hand and rubbed clumsily at his face. “God, I hurt all over.” 

Noah nodded. “ _Yeah_. Bill said you cracked your skull. I bet I’d be screaming if I had a broken head.” And Danny would be screaming at him even worse, with everyone he knew backing him up. Now there was a thought to give him nightmares. 

Theo closed his eyes and leaned his head back into his pillows. “Yeah, guess I did.” Even as few words as he’d spoken seemed to tire him out. “Who came in after I got here?” 

“Besides Dinah, I assume,” said Bill. 

“Yeah.” Theo’s lips barely moved. 

“Just Noah so far,” Bill answered. “I think people are a bit afraid they’ll hurt you more. Dinah told me Danny is keeping Oreet away until you’re home. Nothing personal, she’s just a bit afraid of hospitals. Gad and Sima have to work. Omer said he’d come in tomorrow. Boaz took this past week off, so he’s at the store late. Did I miss anyone else we know?” 

“Monique,” Theo suggested. “Your friend?” 

Bill gave a vigorous nod. “Oh, Monique’s going to come in as soon as her schedule allows,” he said. “She’s been a wonder. I’d have fallen apart every time you went to sleep if she didn’t have my cell phone number.” 

Theo made a satisfied sound and adjusted his head on the pillows. Noah wondered how the hell you could be comfortable at all with a broken skull. Maybe Theo was hardheaded enough that it was just a hairline fracture or something, like when Oreet stubbed her little toe and it needed taping. “She’s awesome. Gotta get her some of that really good cider.” 

“We do,” Bill agreed, and then there was a knock on the door. “Come in.” 

The door opened just enough to let in a small woman in scrubs with dark hair in a bun; she was probably another nurse or something, Noah figured. She looked somewhere in her late twenties, maybe early thirties, but the bad lighting made it hard to tell. “I’m just here to check on you, Dr. Derensky,” she said. “My name’s Christine. I’m the nurse on shift this afternoon.” 

Theo opened his eyes, squinting in the light from the hallway, and shifted his head to look at her. “Hey. Check all you want, I can’t go anywhere else. No secrets here.” 

“That’s what I like to hear,” she said, and bent over his bed, flipping the covers back. She ran her hands over Theo’s abdomen, which Noah studiously avoided looking at because _fuck_ , if you couldn’t get some privacy during a medical examination, then when could you get it? “Does this hurt?” 

Theo took a few seconds to answer. “Just a little,” he said. “Better than yesterday. Least I’m out of intensive care.” 

“Why’d they keep him in intensive care if he was okay?” Noah asked Bill. He didn’t know the first thing about hospitals, apart from that they smelled weird and Vince Adler-Derensky had died in here. Oreet got her shots at the doctor’s office, and thank God, she’d never had any occasion to stay in this scary fucking place. “He _is_ gonna be okay, right?” 

“No, it’s standard procedure after surgery,” Bill said. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing they haven’t told me about.” 

Just then, there was a yelp from Theo and Christine backed away, a length of thin tubing in her hand attached to a sack in the other. It was full of – “Holy fuckballs, is that your _pee_?” Noah said. “Did you get a _pee sack_ put in, Theo?” 

Bill stood up and marched over to Christine. “What were you thinking?” he shouted, his voice so loud that Noah jumped in his seat. “Pulling out his catheter like that! Is this your everyday behavior, or are you just exhibiting a special sort of idiocy?” 

Christine stared back at him. “It’s easier on the patient if they don’t know you’re about to take it out,” she said. “Didn’t you know that?” 

“It _wasn’t_ easier,” Theo moaned. Both of his hands were clasped over his crotch, and his eyes squeezed shut in an expression of abject pain. “That hurts!” 

Bill bent down, lifted Theo’s hands and hospital gown away, and peered at what was underneath. With his position right in front of Noah, there was no opportunity to watch his close-range dong exam even if he wanted to, which was honestly kind of a pity. “I don’t know who taught you a lie like that, but it isn’t easier, especially not if you take it out at a bloody angle like you did!” He replaced the gown and Theo immediately clamped his hands down again. 

“Come on,” said Christine, her tone annoyed now, “he’s being dramatic. And I didn’t take it out at an angle, it’s just dark in here” 

“Then you _flip the light on_.” Bill actually took his finger out and wagged it at her. “Come on, you know this! Do you want him to get a staph infection or _Proteus_ or _Pseudomonas_ or worse?” 

“He’s already on hardcore antibiotics so that it won’t happen!” 

Bill’s face went hard. “Be that as it may,” he said, quietly but in a voice no less steely than before, “it’s wretched patient care and the nurse coordinator will be hearing from me about what happened.” 

Christine crossed her arms. “Gilly’s not going to do anything. I did exactly what they told me to do at the floor desk.” 

“Then that’s for her to decide, isn’t it?” Bill pointed to the door. “I believe your work here is done. Good night!” 

She left, closing the door a little harder behind her than was strictly necessary. Theo took his hands away from himself with a small noise. “ _Ow_ ,” he said. “Jesus.” 

“Yes, F. Lipschitz and all,” said Bill. “Do you want me to call someone else in to have a look? I wasn’t joking about the infection risk.” 

Theo propped himself up a little on his elbows, which prompted Bill to adjust his bed again. Noah wished Dwight would be that attentive when he wanted another pillow instead of grunting, turning over, and telling him to get it himself if he needed extra fluff so bad. “No more of those guys in here for a while, Bill,” he said. “You’re more than I can handle.” 

“Thanks.” Bill kissed the top of Theo’s head. “Now I know you’ve got to be fully awake if you’re insulting me.” Standing back up, he glanced at Noah and then at the clock on the wall. “Not quite dinnertime yet, I’d say,” he mumbled. “Theo, do you want the telly or something?” 

Theo patted his stomach. “ _Should_ be dinnertime. I’m hungry.” He yawned again and then pointed at Bill, eyes open wider, like something had just occurred to him. “Hey, if they took out the pee tube, that means I get to walk to the bathroom by myself, right? No more bedpans for the back end.” 

“Yes, Theo,” Bill replied, “that’s what it means.” 

“Sweet.” Theo clenched a fist and held it in front of him, although he could only hold the position weakly for a moment before his hand unclenched and fell back onto the bed. “Awesome, huh, Noah? I could probably lift you last week and now getting some real food is the highlight of my day.” 

Bill tutted at him. “Don’t be macabre. You’ll be back in fighting shape faster than you think, provided you don’t do anything stupid to hurry that along. You can have what you call _real food_ today and you’ll be even stronger tomorrow.” 

With a sigh, Theo lay back against his pillows. “Could you put me back down a little, Bill?” he asked. “Just a little, I don’t want to lie down all the way. Noah deserves some conversation, since he came all the way here.” 

Noah glanced at the TV screen to see if it could give him any conversation ideas. Nope, still tuned to some news station, and there it went into a commercial anyway. “You heard anything about your nephews yet?” he asked, and sent up a hope that that wasn’t the wrong thing to say. 

“Dee said they’re doing okay,” Theo said. “Went home today, little shits.” He gave a low, soft chuckle. “You know what? She said they wanted to visit, but she was afraid they’d freak out if they saw me. Good idea, right? I look like Frankenstein’s abused boyfriend.” 

Bill narrowed his eyes. “That’s _not_ funny, Theo. Shame on you.” 

“Shame on me? The hell?” Theo cleared his throat and glanced in Noah’s direction. “Noah, what’d I say?” 

Noah gave a one-shouldered shrug. Danny thought it made him look sloppy and the lecture wasn’t worth it, so visiting hours were his best opportunity to look – in his opinion – devil-may-care. “Abuse joke? I mean, I’m not pissed off or anything. You _do_ look like Frankenstein’s abused boyfriend. Or maybe his ex, I don’t know. You did end up in the hospital.” 

Bill made grouchy sputters for a few seconds, but acquiesced with an angry noise that could have come from a wet cat. “I suppose the matter is dropped, then,” he said, sounding as fussy as Noah had ever heard him. “Yes, Dinah told Theo about them. He’s been apprised of both of their situations now.” 

“Including the fact that apparently, neither of them are allergic to penicillin like Dee is,” Theo cut in. “Did you know that? No, wait, of course you didn’t know that. I didn’t. Bill said that was a good thing for some reason.” 

Bill nodded sagely, clearly back on familiar turf. “Yes, it’s a good thing,” he said. “It means they were spared having to take chloramphenicol instead. That’s a powerful drug for people who are allergic or pregnant or what have you, but it’s got awful side effects.” 

“Nice little present from Vince, I bet. Present from _beyond the grave_.” Theo said the last few words in a scary voice an octave below the rest of the sentence. “Thanks, Vince, buddy. Always knew he’d come through for his –“ 

“Can I come in?” someone asked in a muffled voice; Noah only realized it had come from a real person outside the room rather than someone else’s TV when Theo stopped talking, and a knock came immediately after. 

“Yeah, come in,” Theo said. “Fuck, Bill, you stagger it at all today? I’m getting a goddamn parade.” 

“What do you mean?” Bill frowned and pulled on one of the curls falling down over his forehead. “Noah and your sister are the only ones who planned to visit today.” 

The door opened and in came a man whom Noah didn’t recognize: smallish, thinnish, gray-haired with pasty skin that looked blue under the light of the TV. He could’ve been sixty or so, maybe as old as seventy. “This is Theo Derensky’s room, isn’t it?” he asked, looking around. His entire body screamed furtiveness from his darting eyes to his elbows in their worn jacket, drawn in close to his body. “Theo, are you awake?” 

“ _Mortensen?_ ” Theo pushed up on his elbows before Bill could adjust the bed to compensate; it came up behind his back a second later as Bill went for the controls. “What’re you doing here? You heard I got hurt?” 

“Who’s Mortensen?” Noah asked, but as always seemed to happen to him, he remembered halfway through the question. “Oh, yeah, your neighbor. Hey, Theo’s neighbor. Are you here to visit him?” He couldn’t imagine why. Theo complained about him only on a semi-regular basis, not nearly as much as he complained about that colleague of his, but that still had to mean they weren’t friends. 

Mortensen swallowed. His Adam’s apple moved sharply in his skinny throat. “Visit,” he said. “Yes, I came to…to do that.” He shut his mouth and pressed his lips tightly together, and Noah wondered what exactly he was holding inside so hard. Was he in love with Theo or something? Oh, that would just be the topper on the wedding cake of shit that had been poor Theo’s week. He rolled up his sleeves and mentally prepared himself to be a bouncer if he had to. The better part of two years with Dwight had taught him some skills to that effect, even if there was no other way he could be useful here. 

“Okay,” said Theo slowly, his eyebrows rising. “Look, Mortensen, I’m not gonna tell you to go to hell, but you’re kind of the last person I expected.” 

“I know.” Mortensen looked down at the floor. “I know, I…” His eyes returned to Theo’s face, and his clenched lips trembled. “He’s dead,” he blurted out. “Herm is dead. My nephew. He died when he…he did it to…what he and his brother –“ 

Who the hell was _Herm?_ It was the ugliest name Noah had heard in a while, for sure. “Did you get the wrong room?” he asked. “Is your nephew supposed to be here?” There had to be a curse on Theo’s block, maybe a Lenape burial ground or something that they’d built over. First the attack and now Mortensen had a dead nephew. 

Theo bit down on his lip, his eyes clouded like there was something he couldn’t quite remember. “Jeez, sorry about your,” he started, and then suddenly he whipped his head around to stare Mortensen right in the face with eyes so furious that they nearly flamed. “Your nephews,” he shouted. “ _They’re_ the ones who did this! You’re saying I _killed_ one of the sons of bitches?” 

“This guy?” Noah was already up out of his seat with his hands in his sleeves and his knees bending into a crouch that he’d thought time had trained out of him. Fuck trying to be a bodyguard. This was a prison-level thing, a kill-the-bastard thing. He felt his heart begin to pound, and the sound of his heartbeat filled his ears. 

“He’s _dead_ ,” Mortensen repeated. There was nothing to attack, despite how tense Noah’s muscles were. The man wasn’t reaching for a knife or anything, just standing there with his head hanging and his jacket falling off his shoulders like a sad old shit. _This is_ wrong, the old voice in Noah’s head screamed. _Why’s he here?_. “There was a – a perforation and he died. Bolg’s dying. I need to call their grandma.” 

Theo’s upper lip lifted to bare his clenched teeth. “Whoever _perforated_ him is a fucking hero,” he said. “What, are you trying to press charges? I’ll come back at you with everything I got if I have to. Your nephews started it.” 

Mortensen shook his drooping head from side to side. “Not you,” he said. “Not your sword. The – the kid with the knitting needle. He punctured Herm’s intestines and the big artery going from his heart. Doctor said it fell apart before he could operate.” 

“Jesus Christ,” said Theo faintly. “Caleb did that. You hear that, Bill? He shoved his fucking knitting needle into a guy’s stomach and _killed him_.” 

“I heard,” Bill replied. His arms were crossed over his chest, his feet spread apart as he glared at Mortensen. “Theo, do you want me to escort your neighbor out? I see no reason why you should have to listen to him.” He started to move forward, and Noah took the opportunity to sit back down. They didn’t need him to do anything. 

Mortensen held up his hands. “Wait, _please_. I didn’t come to hurt you or anything.” The look in his eyes was frantic. “I want to explain. Please.” 

“Bill,” Theo said, “sit down. I’ll listen as long as he doesn’t get violent.” One of his eyebrows went up. “This should be interesting.” 

Bill sat down, but not without muttering something that Noah could only half catch about how he wasn’t a dog. Well, in Noah’s opinion, he should have been happy with the comparison. Dwight rubbed Chazzer’s ears and Noah’s ears just the same way, but Noah didn’t let his tongue hang out except to use it for interesting stuff that made Dwight moan. 

“Thank you,” said Mortensen fervently. With his hands out like they were, he could have been a supplicant. “The boys, they drove here to do that to you. I didn’t know they were in town ‘til I got the call from the hospital. I’m so sorry, Derensky.” 

Theo’s rigid shoulders relaxed just enough for the slump to be visible. “You didn’t know they were doing this?” 

“No, of course not. I’d never want them to attack you. I don’t _like_ you, but they shouldn’t…” Mortensen shook his head. “They told me Bolg’s probably going to die soon. Bolgen, that’s his name. Norwegian name from his mom – my niece.” 

“Is there a reason you’re telling me this?” Theo said. His eyes were still hard enough that Noah didn’t want to look at them dead-on. “I figured you were Scandie. What’s that have to do with them calling my nephew a kike?” 

“Because they’re only _half_ Norwegian,” Mortensen said in a rush. “The other half’s German. Their last name’s Brunner. Herman and Bolgen Brunner. You – you know that name, don’t you?” He drew in farther on himself, almost a cringe. 

Theo shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.” 

Mortensen heaved a sigh and squeezed his eyes shut for just a second. “Your dad didn’t tell you,” he said. “Jesus, maybe he didn’t know. Their dad’s German, Derensky. Frank Brunner, and his dad was Azzo.” 

Fuck. Noah had sneaked a look at the article when Danny had it up on his computer (in the guise of learning what he couldn’t show to Oreet, of course, but everyone knew Danny loved a good piece of sensationalist crap) and that name was familiar to him now. “Shit,” he whispered. 

“Azzo, you said?” Theo touched his chin. Why wasn’t he blowing up? 

“Yes,” Mortensen said. “Azzo.” 

Theo’s eyes flicked over to Noah. “Okay,” he said. “Noah, sic ‘em.” 

Now that was an order he could comply with. Grinning, Noah stood up and started towards Mortensen. No knives, no nail clippers, but his fingernails were pretty gnarly right now and he could inflict some damage on the eyes if he went fast enough. 

“No!” Bill darted between them and smacked his palm into Noah’s chest. “Theo, I offered to escort him out, not have Noah _maim_ him –“ 

“You think I care?” Theo sat up straight in bed and his voice rose into a shout. “This asshole’s nephews almost killed me, almost killed _my_ nephews! Fuckin’ Neo-Nazi shits! I’m supposed to care that they’re dead now? I’m supposed to say I’m sorry for his loss? Why the fuck’d you come here, Mortensen?” 

“I said I wanted to explain,” Mortensen insisted. Noah could see him start to shake. “Let me finish, Derensky.” 

Theo’s eyes went wide and his expression turned into one of pure rage. “You’ve explained enough.” 

“But I haven’t explained that you got justice for your brother-in-law!” 

Theo had raised his hand as if to hit Mortensen, even though he was ten feet away. Now that hand fell into his lap and his lips parted. “What did you just say?” 

“I said I think my nephews were the ones who killed your brother-in-law.” Now Mortensen was really shaking. “But I can’t be sure!” he said as Theo jerked in place, probably trying to get up, and hissed in pain. “I knew they were out joyriding on the Fourth and then they came back, got their stuff, and just left, I don’t know anything about what they were thinking. They were supposed to stay with me another week before their grandma got them back.” 

Noah didn’t know how it happened. One second, he was sitting and gaping at Mortensen, and the next he was back on his feet with Bill yanking his hands behind him. “Noah!” Bill said. “Sit your arse back down this second – this isn’t your fight!” 

“Oreet still has nightmares from that!” Noah fired back. He struggled against Bill, but his hands were too strong and so was the wrist lock he had Noah in. Fuck nurses and whatever training they got to keep people from mauling each other. “She won’t walk across the street without us convincing her. She’s started talking about not wanting to learn how to drive, Bill!” 

Bill pulled his arms farther back and pain shot from Noah’s shoulder blades to his collarbones. “That’s not Mr. Mortensen’s concern,” he said angrily into Noah’s ear. “That’s a _therapy_ concern, Noah. Now stop trying to attack him or I’ll shoot you with propofol.” 

“Don’t listen to Mortensen, Noah,” Theo said, surprisingly enough. Wasn’t he supposed to be raring for blood right about now? Noah slumped in Bill’s hold and gaped up at Theo, who nodded at him. “This is my problem. Don’t get yourself kicked out and make it worse.” 

Bill let go of him, and Noah crossed his arms. “My decision,” he said under his breath, and went back to the chair. Mortensen deserved a prison shiv in his spine just for what his family had done to Oreet, never mind all the grief they’d caused Theo and Dee’s family for Vince. As for Mortensen’s nephews, well, he should probably be glad that they’d both be dead soon anyway. 

Theo nodded. “Good,” he said. “Bill, you still serious about the propofol? I’m thinking someone needs to make this guy sing.” 

“ _Me_?” Mortensen said. 

“You let your fuckin’ nephews hit my brother-in-law with their car and get away with it.” Theo’s eyes narrowed. “You better tell me why I shouldn’t get you up in front of a judge and put away forever for accessory to murder. That’s information for a case we had to let go _cold_ because all the kids were so freaked about it.” 

“I didn’t know,” Mortensen repeated. “Please believe me, I didn’t know anything for sure. They didn’t tell me anything – they just drove off. What could I have said?” 

“The truth?” Theo suggested. 

It shouldn’t have been possible, but Mortensen seemed to deflate even more. “What good would that have done?” he asked the floor. “They went over state lines. No one saw the license plate, and their grandmother wouldn’t have let you get anywhere near them, anyway.” 

“What’s she have to – oh, fuck.” Theo shook his head mid-sentence and his tone turned horrified. “Oh my God, she’s his wife, isn’t she?” 

Noah’s heartbeat thumped a little louder in his ears. Neo-Nazis they maybe could have dealt with, but an old Nazi grandma? She was going to find out that Jews were the ones who killed her nephews, the descendants of the same Jew who killed her fucking _husband_ , and then not even the three locks Danny had installed on the front door would keep any of them safe. Nazis ran in packs. He’d learned that the hard way. 

“Azzo’s wife? Yep, that’s her,” said Mortensen. “She’s, let’s see…probably ninety-two, ninety-three? I met her a few times before the boys got their car. She’s an old bitch, just plain nasty.” 

Theo gave a slow nod of understanding as the knowledge dawned on him, the same time as it dawned on Noah. “She’s where they learned it?” 

“Yep.” Mortensen scratched the back of his neck. “Don’t think you’ll get anything useful out of Gretchen Brunner. She probably read the darn article. Got her own property, too, and I bet she’s got a shotgun on it.” 

“And no cop’s gonna book a ninety-year-old,” said Theo so softly that his voice was a whisper. “God, Mortensen. Why the hell’d you tell me that?” 

Mortensen’s eyes left the floor for the first time in a while. His jaw was clenched to the point that his already-thin lips were just about invisible. “You’re not the only one who’s got nephews,” he said. “I bet you’d go take responsibility if one of yours mouthed off, wouldn’t you? Mine did more than mouth off. They were _my_ nephews, but they…” He shook his head. “Can’t believe they thought what they did. Did what they did, either.” 

“Killed my brother-in-law,” Theo said, “that’s what they did. They killed Vince and they almost killed my nephews and me. They were Nazis – don’t you fucking sugarcoat it, Mortensen.” 

“Dave. We’re neighbors.” 

Theo blinked at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “ _Neighbors_ ,” he muttered. “Dave. I won’t tell you to go to hell ‘cause at least you were honest with me today, but I’m just gonna say this once. Get your ass out of my room.” 

Mortensen took a few steps towards the door, but stopped before he could get there. “They used to be kids, too,” he said. “Before they moved here. I saw them…they were… _regular_ kids, not evil killers. They learned to do the stuff they did.” 

Theo graced that with a single nod. “I get it,” he said, “but you’ll understand if I don’t really care. And no more goddamn passive-aggressive Christmas fruitcakes on my doorstep, got it? One more and I call the police on you. If we’re talking about, you know, _places they learned to do the stuff they did_.” 

This time, Mortensen made it all the way to the door. “I understand,” he said, his palm on the handle. “I’ll…I’ll see you, Derensky. But I’ll leave you alone if you want.” 

Theo lifted his hand. “Bye, Mortensen.” 

His neighbor scurried out, and as the door slammed behind him, Theo squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back, turning his face into the pillow. “Shoulda killed him,” he said in a wavering voice muffled by the hospital linens. “Shoulda got up and killed him.” 

Bill immediately went to his side and began to stroke his shoulders and hair. “Theo,” he said, “that wouldn’t have solved anything. Please don’t cry.” 

“Don’t try to snap him out of it,” Noah said. Whatever was going on in Theo’s head, he needed permission to just sit there and cry it out until it wasn’t clogging up his circuits anymore. For fuck’s sake, Noah was tempted to cry himself. He’d tell Ori tonight that the people who’d given her nightmares were dead, and Danny could sit on a nail if he didn’t like it. Oreet’s nightmares, he suspected, would disappear after that. 

Bill didn’t argue, which Noah guessed was a testimony to how infrequently Theo fell apart like this. He stood next to Theo’s bedside, ran his fingers through his hair, and whispered weird British endearments that made him sound like he came out of an Austen novel (like “poppet”, for example – what the fuck was a poppet?). Theo never sobbed or anything, just shook in bed and gave an occasional hiccup. 

Noah knew he probably should have been more weirded out by this, but Danny was a crier and Dwight liked sad movies, so he’d had his share of men breaking down. Theo didn’t go for as long as they did, either. After about five minutes, he surfaced from the pillows with red eyes and said raspily, “I hate Mortensen.” 

Bill twirled the fingers of one hand into the curls around Theo’s forehead. “I think the whole hospital is aware of how much you hate Mortensen, dear.” 

Theo leaned into the touch of Bill’s hand. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s his fault. Can I have some water?” 

“Yes, just a second.” Bill took a pitcher off the windowsill and filled a foam cup with water, then handed it to Theo, who gulped it down. “Bugger crying, I say. We ought to have evolved a way of working through our emotions that didn’t make us dehydrated.” 

Noah couldn’t help cracking up, and Theo smiled. “Is it true what Mortensen said, Bill?” he asked. “Caley killed one of ‘em with a knitting needle. That’s gotta be true.” 

Bill cast his eyes over to the side and briefly made eye contact with Noah. “Yes,” he said after a pause, “it’s true. I didn’t want to tell you because you were still so ill, so don’t start shouting again, Theo.” 

“Calm down.” Theo reached for Bill’s hand. “I’m not about to start yelling. I’m just…” He huffed and shook his head with a smile. “Is it weird I’m proud of him? My twelve-year-old nephew killed a skinhead.” 

“That likely saved your life, actually,” said Bill. “Noah, can I have your word that this won’t go beyond these four walls?” 

Noah made an okay sign with his thumb and forefinger. “Snitches don’t live long where I come from.” He wasn’t going to jeopardize his chance of getting in on some juicy medical information, either. Benny wasn’t the only one who lived for TV-style drama. 

Bill sat back down and moved his chair so close to Theo’s bed that the chair arms bumped into the bed rails. “The one Caleb didn’t stab was coming after you,” he said. “You cut his throat, but he threw you down, so that’s where the skull fracture came from.” 

“How do you even know this?” Theo interjected. 

In response, Bill took his phone out of his pants pocket. For the first time since he’d come in, Noah noted the fact that he wasn’t wearing scrubs. It had to be, he realized, that Bill had the day off and was spending every second of it with Theo. Now _that_ was the sign of a good partner. “All those children and their little smartphones saved your life, too,” he said. “They took video, and several of them were smart enough to call emergency services.” He put the phone back in his pocket and returned his hand to Theo’s. “Isn’t technology wonderful?” 

“Yeah.” Theo sucked on his lower lip. “Amazing. What happened after that? Did I knee him in the balls?” 

Bill looked distinctly amused. “Yes, you did, and then you went after him again. After that…” His smile disappeared. “He went down. You went down. The boys were pretty much all right except for the damage you already know about. Phil wouldn’t stop screaming, though, and then he wouldn’t stop vomiting.” 

“Christ,” said Theo. His face was white, and he looked like he was about to throw up. “So…how’d Caley save my life?” 

“He took out the backup system,” said Bill, stroking his hand. “It was one-on-one with you and that other arsehole, and you won.” 

Caleb was probably the most badass kid in the history of ever, then, except for maybe Gavroche from the Les Miserables movie (which Danny had dragged him to see the day it came out). “Hey,” Noah said, “you should tell Caleb that. He’ll love it.” 

“Oh, no,” Theo answered as his face, thank everything, flushed back to a human color. “He’s not hearing about anything for a while. You think Phil’ll hear the end of it? Dumb idea, Noah.” He leaned over to touch his forehead to Bill’s. “Caley’s just getting anything he wants for the rest of his life.” 

“Right now he’s just angry that his knitting needle was taken as evidence,” said Bill. “He talked about that the last time I visited him.” 

“Then I’ll forge him a new pair,” Theo said with a shrug. “He can have some really cool-looking ones.” 

Bill rolled his eyes, but only slightly. “I’ll tell him you said so, but forged knitting needles aren’t practical, Theo,” he said. “Take him to the yarn store instead. He’ll like that.” 

“I think I will,” Theo said. “I’ll get him a hundred new pairs if he wants ‘em. That kid saved my life.” 

“He can come over and pet Chazzer, too,” Noah volunteered. “I’d offer to let him pet Dwight, but I don’t think Dwight would like it.” More likely, the visit would turn into Dwight and Caleb comparing knitting skills and playing some board game while the dog sprawled on Noah and drooled. Sounded like a fun night to him – maybe he’d even see if Oreet could come over with Trayf, who still took the gold medal for goofiest dog in the world. 

Theo yawned and put his head on Bill’s shoulder. “What time is it, Bill?” he asked. 

Bill looked at his watch. “Six,” he said. “Why? Are you hungry?” 

“No, I’m bored.” Theo looked at the TV. “Noah, can you hit the lights? I want to watch TV. Always some interesting shit on the evening news.” 

Finally, he was useful. He’d started to feel like a damn statue in here. “Sure.” Noah got up and turned on the lights, noting the awesome food smell closer to the door. They’d probably be bringing Theo’s dinner around soon. Maybe he could sneak some of whatever it was they were feeding him, although who was he kidding, it was probably Jell-O cups or fruit cups or something else cold and gross in a plastic cup. 

Bill handed Theo the remote when Noah got back. “Have fun,” he said. “I still don’t understand what you find so appealing about American news stations.” 

Theo made a fart noise with his mouth. “Ye of little faith,” he said. “I don’t watch it for the actual news, I watch it for the entertainment value. Noah, you mind, or would you prefer intentional comedy?” 

It was probably going to bore him to tears, to be quite honest, but Noah wasn’t the sick one here and he wouldn’t even protest if Theo put on a snuff film. Besides, he could always claim that Dwight was making pot roast and leave. “Nah,” he said, “the news is fine.” 

Theo jabbed a button on the remote with his thumb. “Fucking hospital TVs,” he said. “Can’t hear a thing. Okay, there we go.” Noah winced at the sudden onset of booming, echoing newscaster voices in the small room. Too many pundits spoiled the visit, as whoever wrote those old expressions would probably say if they were alive now. 

“ – in other news, reports on the Boston-area family who suffered a brutal attack last week give few details, but the victims appear to be alive and well,” the man on air droned. Noah’s head snapped up from where it had started to droop from introspection and lack of sleep. _Wait a second_. 

“Theo, are you listening?” he said. 

“What?” Theo asked. Noah pointed at the TV. Theo cocked his head, but within seconds, his jaw dropped. “Jesus F. Lipschitz, that’s me,” he said. “Oh my _God_ , Bill, that’s phone footage!” 

Bill dropped his head into his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. “Bugger it _all_ , I hoped those kids weren’t going to talk,” he said. 

“You hoped?” Now Theo looked indignant. “You didn’t tell me I was gonna be on the national news!” 

“That’s because I didn’t know,” Bill returned. “Dear God.” 

Theo’s eyes were fixed on the TV, and now his mouth was open to the extent that Noah just hoped he didn’t have a drooling problem. “Turn it up,” he said. 

“You’ve got the remote,” Bill reminded him. 

“Right.” Theo punched the volume button again and Noah covered his ears. What was up with Theo’s hearing? Maybe it was true what Dwight said, that Theo graded papers while listening to death metal. He had to have worse hearing than Trayf when it was time to go to the vet. “Bill, what did –“ 

Bill shook his head sharply and made a zipping motion across his mouth. “Shut up and listen before you talk about suing,” he said. 

“Different accounts give conflicting messages on the nature of the attack.” The newscaster was so calm, and this was why Noah didn’t watch the news. How could they talk about death and stuff and keep a straight face like that? “We turn to our local Fox affiliate and partner CNN affiliate for more coverage on the story.” The screen split into the presentation that Dwight always called ‘talking heads’ when it came up, with one guy in a raincoat on one side and a different one with an umbrella on the other. 

“Fuck,” Theo moaned, “kill me, Bill, I’m watching _Fox fucking News_. See the logo?” 

“Yes, I see it.” Bill squinted at the TV. “Bloody hell, I wonder how they got their hands on the story.” 

“The way I see it,” said the guy with the umbrella, who was an even older-looking prune than Mortensen, “calling this a Neo-Nazi attack at this juncture is just plain irresponsible. We have no word from the attackers on their affiliations or their motives, and you just can’t take bad footage off a teenager’s phone as gospel!” 

“Are you suggesting that five children and their coach heard a set of slurs incorrectly?” The raincoat-covered newscaster sounded both amused and exasperated, which in Noah’s experience was about right when you were dealing with Fox. Danny’s doctor had actually had to tell him to stop watching it because getting mad and yelling at the TV wasn’t helping his blood pressure. 

The prune shook his head. “I’m suggesting that a thorough investigation has been conducted on the perpetrators and all we have to go on is a couple of minor traffic violations. They’re just about clean. Nothing like this has ever come up in their lives, Dane –“ 

“I’m not about to say that they did this out of the blue, Dick,” the guy in the raincoat interrupted him. “I’m saying that not every violation is caught.” 

“Wait,” Theo said, “did that guy just call the other guy _Dane?_ ” 

“I think so,” Bill said. 

“Fuck. Thought so. Bill, scoot me closer.” Theo rubbed his eyes with both fists. “Shit, I can’t see anything with his hair covered up like that…you can spot the color a mile off. Fuck!” 

“ – play footage from the phone closest to the scene,” the initial newscaster was saying. Both he and the talking heads were suddenly replaced with a blurry, shaking video clip. Noah couldn’t make out details, but that was Theo’s hair for certain, and the screams from both Theo and his nephews made his heart constrict in his chest. _How scared must they have been?_

The screen changed back to the talking heads, but now, the one Theo was having fits over looked like someone had just hit him in the stomach. His mouth hung open just like Theo’s had, and his eyes were open wide enough that a thick ring of white showed all around the irises. Noah knew exactly how he felt. 

But he didn’t say anything, because the old anchor took the opportunity to jump in and commandeer the conversation. “What we just saw looked less like an attack and more like a fistfight,” he said. “It’s important that when we analyze this regrettable incident, we take the fact into account that the victim could have instigated it before the cameras started rolling.” 

The raincoated anchorman’s face went from flabbergasted to violently angry in the space of about half a second, and he ripped the hood of his raincoat off his head to reveal some of the reddest hair Noah had ever seen. “That is my _cousin_ ,” he growled, “and you’re an anti-Semitic trash heap. Stick your opinions somewhere else – I quit.” And with that, he stormed out of view and broke into a run even as the cameras trained on him, so fast that only his yellow plastic-covered back could be seen. 

Now the mouths of both the Fox anchor and the affiliate were open, but Noah had the pleasure of seeing their discombobulation for only a second before a screen full of multicolored bars and “TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, PLEASE STAND BY” in white text replaced their faces. Looking from Bill to Theo, Noah searched for any signs of cardiac arrest or something else that could explain why they weren’t talking, but he could see only shock and hear only silence. 

Bill was the one to finally break it. “Dear sweet Lord,” he said, an expression so Southern that Noah could only guess he’d picked it up from a patient. “It runs in the family.” 

“Damn right it does,” said Theo, and suddenly he’d snapped out of it, as animated as he’d been before and moving his upper body as much as he could. One hand went to Bill’s and the other pulled through a segment of his hair in obvious frustration. “That idiot just lost his job for me. I’m not worth a job! Bill, gimme my phone.” 

Bill grabbed his arm. “Theo, no,” he said. “Think it through first, don’t go doing anything rash. Who are you planning to call? The police?” 

“What?” Theo looked at him like he’d just suggested calling another planet. “No way. I was planning on calling _Dane_ , Bill. I need to try and talk him out of it so he doesn’t ruin his life over me.” 

“He’s not going to ruin his life. Your cousin is a grown man.” Bill put both hands in his hair and squeezed two handfuls of curls. “Just calm down. Do you want me to distract you? I’ve got something to ask you, anyway.” 

Theo folded his arms (too fast, going by the noise of discomfort he made). “What’s that? You want to know what I want for dinner?” 

“No.” Bill kicked his shoes off and got up on Theo’s bed, straddling his legs and taking Theo’s face between both of his palms. Noah moved his chair closer, because something told him this was a question he didn’t want to miss. “I was planning to ask you this when you got home last week, but I don’t think I can wait any longer. Theo –“ _oh, fuck_ , Noah thought – “will you marry me?” 

Theo froze, it seemed, mid-breath. “What?” The question came out sharp, but surprised, not angry. Noah knew from angry voice, and this wasn’t it. “You’re proposing, Bill?” 

“Yes,” Bill said, and swallowed. “I…I wanted to make sure you weren’t too angry to think rationally when you made that call. Will you marry me?” 

In one motion, Theo pulled him into a tight hug that hid his face in Bill’s neck and made Bill let out a soft _oof_. “Yes,” he said in a thick voice. “I’ll marry you, Billy.” 

“Good.” Bill’s voice was shaking, too. Noah was tempted to cry or something, just to make it a trifecta, but this wasn’t his moment to burst in on. “Now…now if you want to, you can call your cousin.” 

Theo didn’t do it right away. For a long time, while the TV continued to blare a staticky squealing sound, he held onto Bill, occasionally rocking in place just a little. When he did break away, his scowl was gone and an enormous smile had replaced it. “Okay,” he said, “ _now_ give me my phone.” 

Bill got up and went to the little wheeled table at the foot of Theo’s bed, then rummaged through the various pieces of clutter on top before he came up with Theo’s phone. It was an iPhone, the lucky sumbitch, better than what Noah had. “Now just be careful,” he said. “Don’t say anything too self-incriminating.” He handed Theo the phone across the length of the bed. 

“Will do,” Theo said. “Or won’t do? Whatever.” He thumbed the screen a few times. “Can’t believe I still have his number,” he continued, eyes fixed on the phone. “It’s been about a million years since we’ve talked.” 

“It’s cool you still have his number,” Noah told him. Theo had to love his cousin, then, if he had a way of still staying in contact with him despite the fact that he’d never brought him up. Noah reminded himself to ask Dwight later if he knew anything about Dane. “I’d drop Danny’s if I could.” 

Theo snorted and quirked an eyebrow. “I bet. Okay, I’m putting this on speaker, all right? I want witnesses if he decides I’m the reason he’s not making any more money. Or if I make a really spectacular joke or something.” He looked up from the phone. “You’re my witnesses? Promise?” 

“Yes, Theo,” Bill said, “although I don’t think you need any.” 

“All right.” Theo pressed something on his screen and the sound of a ringing phone filled the room. Noah’s heart started beating faster and he had no idea why – this wasn’t _his_ cousin, so what was he so scared of?

“Hello?” 

“Dane!” Theo bellowed. “You fuckin’ idiot, why’d you go and get yourself canned over me? I’m not worth getting canned over!” 

There was a loud laugh from the other end, nearly identical to Theo’s. “Theo, I never thought I’d see your pukeface alive again!” 

“And I’m out,” Noah said to no one in particular. While hilarious, this was a conversation that he didn’t think he had any business butting in on now. Theo and Dane probably needed some time to catch up. “Can I visit again soon? Wait, when will Theo be out of the hospital?” He would really rather visit in the comfort of Theo’s house, where at least it didn’t smell like death. 

“All right, all right,” Bill said in a whisper. Theo was still yelling into the phone with an ear-to-ear grin, but thanks be to everything good, he’d turned the speaker off and had it up to his ear now. Maybe the bellowing was getting to him, too, Noah thought. “Why don’t you visit again in a few days? And tell Dwight that Theo says hello.” 

Noah whispered back “I will,” and went for the door, just stopping to check that his wallet was still in his jeans pocket; the jeans were old enough that sometimes things fell out of them. It was there, so he headed out – and almost bumped into a hospital employee with a dinner cart. “Hey, sorry,” he said. “I’ll get out of your way.” 

He got a ‘no problem’ in response and so figured he didn’t have to stick around to do any more explaining, even if what was on the cart did smell amazing. The visit was over and now this place was a fucking danger zone, closing in on him just like it had when Vince died and he’d been stuck in the waiting room for hours. Hospitals stank, and he didn’t just mean the pee smell. 

Dwight’s “junker,” as his husband called the piece-of-crap Jeep that he’d rescued from a friend who was about to send it out for parts, was waiting for him in the parking lot when he left, and the sun had long since set. Noah drove home as fast as he could without triggering any stupid cop’s radar, since Dwight had told him when he got thrown in the clink for rescuing Chazzer that he wasn’t going to bail Noah out again (fucker _knew_ that there’d been a metal collar digging into her neck and he still said that), and the lights that he saw in the windows when he arrived home told him that Dwight had gotten there first. 

It smelled somewhere between gross and great inside. Good, that meant Dwight had cooked, and _that_ meant Noah didn’t need to bother. As thanks, he found Dwight – standing in front of the refrigerator, of course, because that was his thinking spot – and hugged him from behind, hooking his chin over Dwight’s shoulder. “Hey, big guy,” he said. 

“I’m on the phone,” Dwight rumbled in Noah’s ear. “Brian? Noah just got home. I’ll talk to you later.” He paused. “No, shut up, you’ve been yakking at me for twenty minutes. Go complain to someone else. I’ll talk to you on Friday, so _goodbye_.” He put his phone down on the kitchen counter. “How was the visit, _dodi?_ ” 

Stupid Dwight, using the words he knew would melt Noah into a puddle, incoherent except for how it was begging to be fucked. “Good,” Noah said, arms still around Dwight’s waist. “Bill proposed.” 

“Really?” Dwight twisted away and pulled Noah into a real hug, warm and beardy and pretty awesome. “That’s kind of random. Why’d he do it?” 

“Near-death experience and Theo was about to do something dumb.” Noah shrugged against Dwight’s chest and decided to cling a little longer. This was comfortable, and he needed it after all the fluorescent lights and weird beeps at the hospital. “Theo’s story got on the national news, can you fuckin’ believe it? His cousin totally chewed out a Fox News guy for being anti-Semitic on air, and then he quit. It was awesome.” 

“Dane?” Dwight said. “Dane _quit_ his job?” 

“Yeah, Dane. How’d you know?” 

Dwight snorted. “Theo doesn’t _have_ any other cousins. Thanks, Hitler.” He patted Noah’s back and let go, which Noah protested with a wordless whimper. Sometimes words just didn’t do the job. “Sorry, can’t hold you all night. I need to eat stuff.” 

That was a good reason. Noah’s stomach growled, and with a one-shouldered shrug, he sat down at the kitchen table to wait. “What’d you make?” 

“Nothing fancy,” Dwight answered, opening the oven, “just lasagna. I’ve been keeping it warm in here. Sorry if it tastes weird.” 

“’S’okay,” Noah said. Compared to the half-frozen Healthy Choice meals and takeout that had made up Dwight’s pathetic culinary repertoire before Noah cooked some sense into him, weird-tasting lasagna was practically the work of a three-star chef. “Why isn’t Chazzer down here? She loves that shit.” 

“Took her out to pee a while ago. Now she’s napping upstairs.” Dwight took the dish of lasagna out of the oven with the help of two potholders and set it down on one of the stove burners, then took a serving spoon out of the cutlery drawer. “Dinner’s ready. Come get it.” 

No pomp and less ceremony, that was Dwight. Sometimes Noah tried to get up the impetus to care, but if he really hated having a low-maintenance relationship that much, he knew he would have split a long time ago. Living in a house where you didn’t have to set the table for every meal was so much better than the alternative. “Thanks,” he said, and loaded a chunk of lasagna onto a plate for consumption purposes. “You didn’t put any ricotta in.” 

“Yeah,” said Dwight as he got his own dinner, “I know you hate it.” 

“I _really_ hate it,” Noah corrected him. “You shouldn’t have to eat anything that looks that much like dick cheese.” He and Dwight sat down at the scratched-up kitchen table and for a few minutes, the conversation quieted in favor of shoveling in lasagna. The smell turned out to be right on the money: it wasn’t disgusting, but it wasn’t fantastic. Just serviceable, but sometimes that was all he needed. 

Through a mouthful of lasagna, Dwight finally asked, “What else happened at the hospital?” He swallowed and pointed his fork at Noah. “There’s gotta be more interesting stuff than just Bill proposing.” 

“Well…” Getting on the national news was probably interesting, but a lot of weird shit got put on it that nobody remembered a week later. “We might be in danger from a ninety-year-old Nazi grandma.” 

“Sorry, a ninety-year-old _what?_ ” Dwight echoed, and began to cut another bite of lasagna. “Who’d you piss off, Noah?” 

Dwight had a lot of nerve. “No one!” Noah said. “Jeez. You want to be worried about someone pissing people off, worry about Theo. He’s the one who killed the Nazi grandma’s grandsons.” Okay, that was just insanely awkward phrasing. Maybe he should just say ‘Nazi grandsons’ from now on. “His asshole neighbor visited. Get this, the guys who attacked Theo and the boys were this guy’s great-nephews. And he said they were the ones who killed Vince!” 

“ _What?_ ” Dwight slammed his fork and knife down and stood up, looming over Noah with a furious look on his face. “Are you serious? We couldn’t get any fuckin’ leads on that case and the kids –“ 

“Calm down!” Noah said, and held up his hand like Bill had. Dwight’s anger had been scarier when he didn’t know how to handle it, but time had tamped down the instinct to think Dwight was shouting at him every time he got mad. “Dwight, sit back down. They’re dead. Theo and Caleb killed ‘em.” 

Dwight collapsed back into the chair. “You serious?” 

“Kind of,” Noah admitted. “I mean, one of them is dead. Mortensen said the other one is dying. I think Theo said they live with their old Nazi grandma in another state. What happened is they saw the article, or she did or something, and they drove over here to attack them.” 

The confused expression on Dwight’s face was adorable enough to get kissed off, but now was not the time. Sometimes, Noah surprised himself with how strong and sudden his desires were. He had to believe that after twenty-six years of being a sheep so black that no one would even shear him (he’d had to cut his own hair for a while), his responses to affection were all the stronger now. “ _Why’d_ they try to kill him, though?” Dwight asked. “They barely know him. They know _Boaz_ better than they know Theo.” 

Oh. Being a scatterbrain wasn’t working to his advantage tonight. “Sorry, I forgot to say this first,” Noah said. “You’re never gonna believe it. That guy Theo talked about in the article, the one who killed his grandfather and then got killed by his dad? Nazi Grandma is his wife.” 

“Fuck.” 

Noah didn’t think he could have put it better himself. “Yeah, fuck is right. Mortensen said she’s not the kind of person who’ll let anyone near her for questioning or anything, and he thinks she has a gun. Total backwoods stereotype except for the Nazi thing.” 

“Uh-huh.” Dwight’s eyebrows knit. “You got a name for her?” 

“Mortensen said she’s Gretchen Brunner,” said Noah. “Why? You think she’s part of the Klan or something?” Oh, God, maybe Dwight thought she was going to come after all of them and bring more Nazi friends with her. Prison Nazis usually knew how to be more subtle, but the real-world ones were way more numerous. 

Dwight shrugged and went to the counter, then brought his phone back to the table. “Yeah,” he muttered as he looked at the screen, “I have your brother’s number in here. Good. Noah…” He looked up from the phone, eyes deadly serious. “If you hear anything, let me know the second the other one dies. One is bad enough. The attackers’ grandmother is probably the next of kin and she might need to come over here to sign papers.” That was his cop voice, the one he deployed for interrogations and especially long patrols, and the cop face that sucked all warmth from his bright blue eyes. 

Chazzer announced her arrival in the kitchen by whining and touching one of Noah’s hands with her cold, wet nose. He wordlessly fed her a piece of lasagna – suddenly, he wasn’t at all hungry anymore. “Good girl,” he told her, then said to Dwight, “What are you trying to do now?” 

“Your brother and sister should probably stay over here tonight,” Dwight said. “I can send out some cops to patrol everyone’s streets tomorrow in case anyone tries anything. Dinah and the boys can probably stay at Theo’s, his security system’s even better than ours.” 

Shit on a shingle, as Danny had said the one time he stubbed his little toe so hard it broke. “Danny and Oreet should stay at Theo’s, too,” Noah said. “There’s more room over there.” And then he wouldn’t have to deal with Danny snoring all night, worse than Dwight, and getting him up at ass in the morning to eat a well-balanced breakfast. Nope, he’d already run into enough problems today. 

“Just a second.” Dwight picked up his phone again and texted furiously for a few minutes before putting it down again. “Okay, I let them know. They can take the guest room, the sheets are clean.” 

Great, even the possible reprieve of Danny on the living-room couch was gone now. “But I don’t want them to hear us bang,” Noah whined. He knew it was immature and shit like that, but sometimes a good whine was all that helped. It was a whining kind of night, anyway, with fucking Nazis…where? Fuck, maybe even in the same state. If someone was going to attack them in their sleep, Noah wanted to get off before it happened. 

Dwight put his phone down and one of his eyebrows went up. “You want to bang?” 

That wasn’t a ‘no fucking way’ voice. Noah ate a bite of lasagna to fortify himself as Chazzer lay down on his feet. “Yeah,” he said. “You got a problem with that?” 

He shook his head. “No problem. I think I’ve done all I can do for tonight. You want to fuck, I’m sure I can get myself in the mood.” 

Under the table, Noah’s cock started to swell in his jeans. Dwight’s fucking _voice_ got to him every single time. It was a good thing that Dwight’s job didn’t require any business trips, since Noah suspected he would have been calling his husband for phone sex on the regular if it did. “I wanna fuck.” He ate the last of his lasagna as fast as he could (it really did taste worse the colder it got, damn) and winked at Dwight when he was finished. 

“You have sauce on your chin,” Dwight pointed out. Okay, so the wink didn’t exactly have its intended effect. Whatever, Noah had overcome bigger obstacles for a lay. Notably, Dwight himself and his police attitude. 

He wiped his face on his sleeve and tried his sexy face again. This time, it got a response in Dwight’s suddenly-unfocused eyes and the bright flush spreading across his cheeks and nose. _Bullseye_ , Noah thought with some satisfaction. “How about you do me against the wall?” he suggested, shifting in his seat. Even saying the words did interesting things to his boner. “Wanna do that, big boy?” 

Dwight’s sudden disgusted face told him that that was a bad choice of words. “Ew,” he said. “You sound like that pedophile we caught a few years ago, you know, the one they put on the evening news.” 

“Jesus Christ on a cracker,” Noah said. The word ‘news’ was pinging something in his head and it didn’t have to do with disappointment…no, it had to do with – “Okay, something’s confusing me. How do you know Dane?” 

“With how long I’ve known Theo? You’ve got to be joking,” Dwight said. “I was Theo’s plus-one to Dane’s wedding. It was, I don’t know, maybe ten, fifteen years ago. A while, ‘cause I remember Theo’s hair was only to his shoulders or something. His ex cut it off when he was sleeping.” 

“Ouch.” That was cruel. Noah was well aware of how proud Theo was of his hair, even if he couldn’t be bothered to do more with it than wash it regularly and put it in a ponytail. “I hope he killed the guy.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, given that Theo just _had_ killed a guy. He prayed that Dwight wouldn’t notice. 

Dwight just laughed, clearly somewhere on memory lane. “It was really funny. First of all, Dane got married in a country club because his wife’s a WASP or something, and that really made Theo mad. He wasn’t always as laid-back as he is now.” 

“You call Theo laid-back now?” Noah said incredulously. “What’d he used to be, a Hasid?” 

“No,” Dwight answered, “just young and angry. I think he’d just lost his mom maybe a year ago – I remember him getting drunk and telling me, ‘Three-quarters of my family are dead now.’ Exact words. And Dinah couldn’t be there because she had exams or something, so it was just Theo and me and Dane, surrounded by pasty-white people. And Dane’s dad.” 

Noah was finding out all kinds of new things about Theo today. “Theo has an uncle?” 

Dwight pursed his lips and tilted his head. “No, um…first cousin once removed,” he said. “Dane’s his second cousin. Their grandfathers were brothers. Theo says he used to call him Uncle Greg, but he was…right, his name was Gerhard. He got out of Europe, but Theo’s grandfather didn’t.” 

“Oh,” Noah said. He really was lucky, wasn’t he? Not that he’d ever had the occasion to say that about any part of his life, shit parents and life spent in and out of either correction facilities or psych wards before he went back to live with Danny, but the Holocaust was a steamroller. His family had been in America for long enough to escape that particular type of all-consuming sadness. “What’s his cousin like? I didn’t hear him long enough to get a read.” Except for him being as loud and reckless when he was emotional as Theo was, with the same tendency to do the right thing and fuck the consequences sideways. 

Dwight got up and stacked Noah’s empty plate on top of his, which Noah appreciated. At Danny’s house (could it really be that he was thinking of Dwight’s house as _his_ now, too?), he always had to switch off with Oreet to bus the table, even if he was tired or on the edge of a meltdown. Here, at _home_ , it was different. “Nice,” he said as he put the plates in the dishwasher. “A lot like Theo. You know how he’s completely wacko when he’s not at work? Dane’s like that when he has free time, too. He’s wicked smart about anything that has to do with animals.” 

“Really?” Noah suspected that his ears would have perked up if they could have. “He’s like me?” 

“Worse,” Dwight said, “or better, not sure which. I asked him at the wedding about some kind of rare snake because I saw it in a movie, and he had the answer in…” He snapped his fingers. “Five seconds, maybe. Just like that. And he’d had a lot of champagne already.” 

“Kickass.” Not even the director of the shelter where Dwight had encouraged him to volunteer was as enthusiastic as Noah was, if he did not-so-humbly say so himself. “Theo should invite him to visit.” 

Dwight nodded and came back to the table. “Yeah, he should,” he said. “Nothing really happened, they just kind of grew apart. Except for them punching each other at Dane’s reception, but they were both really drunk and I don’t think they had any hard feelings. Dane’s got a sister and she doesn’t talk to Theo now, either. No idea why.” 

“Maybe Dane will call her,” Noah said. “Theo should have his family here at a time like this.” Theo’s personal life really was pathetic, wasn’t it? He needed to send him a basket of flowers or maybe a giant gift cookie basket with a cookie cake in it. 

But whatever. Enough about Theo. Noah’s own personal life had way too much Theo in it right about now, and all the Theo was distracting him from his original goal with Dwight. Noah got up from his chair, went to Dwight’s, and rested his cheek on Dwight’s smooth, bald scalp. “Want to bang now?” he asked. “We don’t have to do it against the wall.” 

Dwight leaned his face up and kissed Noah’s eyelid. “Yeah,” he said. “Just let me give Chazzer some peanut butter so she won’t bother us.” 

Noah lifted his head, sticking his tongue out and rubbing his eye where Dwight’s lips had landed. “Now _you_ sound like Danny.” All domesticity and planning out a time slot and making sure the dog was happy before he even took his pants off. Maybe Dwight would start sterilizing his dick now, or whatever Danny did before sex (Noah didn’t want to think about it). 

Dwight picked Chazzer’s rubber Kong toy off the floor and went to the pantry. “You’d rather have her lick your ass during?” 

“Oh. Good point.” Noah shuddered. Maybe Dwight was just being practical after all, and only needed a few dirty words to loosen him up. “I can stretch myself while you give her the treat.” 

That got Dwight’s attention. He turned around, the Kong in one hand and the jar of peanut butter in the other, and gave that feral smile of his, the one that was only an open mouth away from his orgasm face. Noah had to take a second to adjust his jeans at the sight. “You want to take it up the ass,” he said, almost purring, “be my guest. Pretend it’s my fingers.” 

“Fuck, yeah, I will,” Noah said faintly. Now he was way beyond adjustment. “I’ll go lube up.” His pants couldn’t have been less comfortable if there were an actual sock in his boxers, so anyone would probably understand if his gait was a little clunky on the way to the bathroom. Bill had once mentioned to him that a wide gait was a sign of neurosyphilis, which Noah really wished he didn’t know now. 

The bathroom was tiny, way too small for the two of them, and the tile grout was always grimy no matter how many times they cleaned it, so Noah was stuck looking at it while he stood with one foot up on the toilet lid, a tube of lube in one hand. The warming stuff was great, but he thought the plain stuff would work better this time; they weren’t doing anything fancy and Dwight sometimes complained that it burned. 

He couldn’t resist a cry of “Mmm! Fuck!” when he slid two lubed fingers into himself. Dwight and his cock meant he had to _start_ with two, and God, did he love it. Two were soon replaced with three, which Noah moved in and out with little thrusts of his hips while his dick got harder and harder. Just the thought of Dwight was enough to make him ready to come sometimes, and when touching his prostate made his whole body go hot and tingly, he knew it was time to stop so sex wouldn’t be over before it began. 

Noah washed his hands and went back to the kitchen, lube in hand and wearing absolutely nothing. Dwight could yell at him later for leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor later if he wanted, but for now, he was too horny to even throw them on the bedroom floor. “Hey,” he said. “You ready?” 

Dwight stared at him. “I am _now_ ,” he said. “No condom?” 

“No,” said Noah, “not tonight. I want to feel you dripping outta me when we’re done.” 

“Fuck, you’re filthy.” Dwight strode over and kissed Noah hard and open-mouthed. His beard scratched Noah’s face and Noah whimpered back, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing Dwight close to bring the kiss, and the rest of him, as close as could be. 

They started in the center of the kitchen, so Noah didn’t know how it happened when his back suddenly slammed into the door leading from just behind the table to the backyard, the handle inches away from his left hip. “Careful!” he said, and bit Dwight’s earlobe as a warning and as a punishment for being so bad. “I’m not _you_. Can’t do that.” 

Dwight rubbed his dick against Noah’s thigh, hot and hard. Noah moaned. “Guess I’m a dirty cop,” he growled. “You want me to talk dirty while I’m fucking you, Noah?” 

“ _Yes_.” Noah slung his hands across Dwight’s back. He was, he realized, still holding the lube. “Call me a dirty slut and fuck me into the door.” 

“Then I will.” Dwight lowered his head and bit the hollow of Noah’s neck. “Lube?” Noah freed a hand and gave it to him. “Thanks.” He pulled away just far enough to squirt some lube into his hand and reach down, grasping himself with an amazing noise. “Mmm _goddammit_ , I want to be in you.” 

Noah reached around and squeezed Dwight’s ass. It was practically all muscle, hardly anything there to squeeze, but down near where his balls hung hard and wrinkled, there was a soft triangle of fat on each cheek that was perfectly squeezable. “Put it in me right now,” he said. His voice didn’t come out nearly as commanding as he would have liked. “I want you to fuck me right this second.” 

“Bossy,” Dwight said. His voice was unsteady, and Noah looked down to see him rubbing at his bare glans with his thumb while his fingers curled around the sizeable girth of his shaft. “Okay, turn around. Hands against the door. I’m gonna fuck you hard.” 

He eagerly obeyed, whirling around and bracing himself with both hands but careful not to let the wood scratch, well, _his_ wood. “Okay, now do it.” He spread his legs and rolled his spine to tilt his ass up so that Dwight would have the best possible angle. “Fuck your cockslut.” 

Dwight huffed, moved closer, and spread Noah’s asscheeks with an enormous hand on each one. Everyone made Noah feel tiny, especially someone as huge as Dwight, but he was the only one who’d ever made him feel safe and protected, even as – “Oh, _fuck_ me!” – he slid his cock smoothly into Noah’s ass. 

Noah leaned his forehead against the door and tried not to scream in pleasure as Dwight started to move in and out, _so_ much better than his fingers even when he put four of them inside himself. “Nnn,” he moaned instead, and bit his lip when his cock twitched with tickling drops of precome. “T-touch…touch my dick.” 

Dwight didn’t, the shithead. Instead of touching Noah like a decent human being, he leaned his front into Noah’s back and said in his ear, “You want me to do that, don’t you? Like being a slut for a bad cop like me?” The words came out fractured and disjointed between puffs of breath, and Noah knew that Dwight was getting just as overcome as he was. 

“ _God_ , yeah!” Noah pushed his ass back and let out a cry when that drove Dwight’s cock past his prostate. “Fuuuck…I’m your – your _whore_ , Dwight.” He gasped in a breath and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand so the sweat wouldn’t drip into his eyes. “Ready for you all day.” 

A growl rolled out from deep in Dwight’s chest. “Better be,” he panted, and bit Noah’s earlobe. “Love makin’ you scream.” He thrust again. Noah both felt and heard the wet smack of his ass against Dwight’s front, _fuck_ , that had to be his balls hitting him. “You gotta –“ 

Suddenly, the loud, shrill scream of something electronic interrupted whatever he was about to say. For a split second, Noah thought it was the fire alarm before enough clouds cleared out of his head for him to realize what was going on. “Fuck my life!” he groaned. “That’s your phone.” 

Dwight swore in Hebrew, something that Noah had never heard (that was a first), although it sounded angry and was probably depraved as hell. “I gotta get that,” he said. 

“No, you don’t.” Noah banged his forehead against the door in frustration – why did Dwight have to be such a stubborn fuckface? God, he loved him. “You’re in the middle of fucking…oh, come on, Dwight, don’t pull out!” 

Dwight backed away from him, leaving Noah’s ass to the ravages of the cold kitchen air. Now he was all hotted up with no place to go, just great. “It could be important,” he said, and that was when Noah remembered Nazi Grandma. Fucking smeg, Dwight really did have to get that. 

The ringing stopped as Dwight held the phone up to his ear. “What?” he said. At least he didn’t feel like he had to be pleasant to whomever was calling during sex. In Noah’s opinion, that was even ruder than calling during dinner. “Hi, Dinah. What’s up? ...no, we’re kind of busy.” 

“You can say that again,” Noah said under his breath. 

Clearly, it wasn’t far enough under, because Dwight looked at him and gave him the finger and a dirty look. “Yeah, I mean really busy.” He paused. “Okay, so it’s _not_ an emergency…Dee, unless she’s _my_ aunt, I’m not interested. I’ll call you in a few hours. Okay?” 

Noah eased back up to a full stand just long enough to stretch his arms over his head, then went back into his former position just as Dwight said “Okay, bye,” and hung up. “Sorry, Noah,” he said, and came back over, caressing Noah’s waist with both hands. “Dinah wanted my attention for something.” 

“I heard,” Noah said dryly. “Whose aunt called?” 

Dwight kissed his neck. “Bill’s. Not urgent. Can I get back inside you now?” 

“Oh, _fuck_ yes.” Noah wiggled his ass at Dwight. “Do it now, I feel empty.” 

Dwight slapped Noah’s ass lightly, always a good thing, and (thank fuck) came in on command, stretching Noah open again just the way he needed right now. “You’re still so tight,” he groaned. “How are you so tight?” 

“How can you still talk?” Noah returned. Not that he was doing much better with Dwight’s cock inside him. In fact, the pleasure stole any words he would have said next; all he could do was lean his head against the door again and shiver, feeling his nipples go hard. 

With a grunt, Dwight began to thrust faster, all the while caressing Noah’s stiff nipples with two fingers each. “ _My_ slut,” he said. “My slutty husband. Gotta…h-have you all to myself.” 

Noah closed his eyes. “Mm,” he whimpered. He felt tender and sensitized and tingly all over, scrubbed clean of some numbness like dead skin or a callus. Dwight’s fingers kept tweaking his nipples with just the right amount of pressure, and he _knew_ the bastard knew that that made him come like a fountain. 

“Should…keep…keep you locked up all to myself,” Dwight ground out with another thrust. “Locked up in a m-mountain, you can scream all you want.” 

Oh, goddammit and fucking fuck. Images ran through Noah’s head of his body tied up on a St. Andrew’s cross, of silk blindfolds and ties for his wrists, of Dwight making him scream as loudly as he wanted without any of the neighbors complaining about the noise. He closed his eyes and jerked his hips with a whimper, and then he was coming all over himself, the door, and the floor. 

Dwight came, loudly, while Noah was still panting in the wake of his comedown from the orgasm. “Fuck!” he said, drawing it out, and then devolved into quick, slurred curses in Hebrew as his hands moved to Noah’s waist again and gripped hard. His cock almost hurt when it moved inside him, as oversensitive as Noah was, but he couldn’t honestly say he gave a shit. 

For a few minutes, Noah was content just to let Dwight lean against him and huff and puff, but eventually, the silence got to be too much. “Happy?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Dwight said. His voice was full of exhaustion. “So glad you talked me into that.” 

Noah rolled his eyes and pulled away slowly, letting Dwight slip out of him. “Two-way street.” He turned around and gave Dwight a hug; with the difference in their heights, his forehead ended up pressed against Dwight’s chin, fogged at regular intervals by his breath. “Thanks for coming back.” 

“What, with Dinah?” Dwight sloppily kissed his forehead. “That wasn’t you. I just don’t want to deal with people.” 

Noah took a second to consider that. “Well, what _do_ you want?” 

“Dessert,” Dwight admitted. “I’m really starving now.” 

Now that he mentioned it, Noah thought he could use some sweet junk in his belly right about now, and he didn’t mean the time he’d brought chocolate syrup into bed. “Let’s clean off the floor and I’ll break out the ice cream,” he said. “Then let’s watch TV and deal with Dinah in the morning.” 

Dwight gave him one last squeeze and released him. Even flaccid and sweaty with his beard half-plastered to his face and neck, he was so powerful. And cuddly, but that was just for Noah. “You get the ice cream,” he said. “I’ll deal with the spooge.” 

That was about as poetic as Dwight ever got, and Noah wouldn’t have traded it. Spouting off at the mouth about flowers and chocolates during sex was for sorry saps. “Okay,” he said. “I love you.” 

“Love you, too. You know that, right?” 

“Yeah.” Noah smiled at him. “I always will.” And then, still stark naked and starting to drip, he went to make sure that the dog hadn’t found mischief while they were busy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I was studying for my Infection and Immunity midterm while I wrote the beginning of this? :D 
> 
> Dwight's term of endearment means "beloved" in Hebrew. Dwight's sap only extends so far as single words. 
> 
> In other medical news, an anon - doing a wonderful impression of a Baker's cyst - recently reviewed this fic on Opposite Day. You'll be happy to know that I'm taking the advice very much to heart and will not, in fact, stop writing the story the way it is in my head. In short, I'm perfectly happy to do a demonstration with Theo's favorite finger if I get flamed again. 
> 
> As always, I'm at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr. And lastly, the "gross-great" thing is from Bob's Burgers (the episode with the ambergris).


	17. And the Shadows Flee Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A great many things in the Derensky family's lives come full circle. Not all of them are pleasant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mentions of violence, sexual abuse due to power imbalances, the Holocaust, and PTSD.

i.

The skinhead that they didn’t kill died the night after Uncle Theo was moved. That made Caleb think of the line about how “the king died that very night” from The Princess Bride, but this time, it wasn’t all a dream. There was just real life with Uncle Theo sick and Mom so tired and Caleb’s throat only hurting a little bit less every day. Life wasn’t The Princess Bride and he wished it was.

They’d been in Uncle Theo’s house for two days, and today he’d finally come home from the hospital. Mom had to go get him because Bill was totally useless, and Caleb didn’t think he was being mean to think that, because Bill had said so himself when he wasn’t crying. “I’m useless to you right now,” he’d said right after they got to the house. “Sorry for the bad company. You have free rein of the kitchen.” And then he’d gone upstairs and didn’t come down for almost a day. 

Now Uncle Theo was on the couch, so Mom could go take a nap while he sort of watched Caleb and Phil. “Caley,” Uncle Theo called over to him now, “you hungry? Want a Popsicle or something? There’s tons in the freezer.” 

“No thank you,” Caleb said, turned a page of his book, and cleared his throat. The doctors and Bill all said the bruises would go away soon, but it still hurt to talk and his voice came out all raspy like he’d just woken up. “I’m okay.” 

Phil looked up from Uncle Theo’s spare computer. It was the one he only used for games and he’d still made Phil promise not to go snooping around his Internet history. Caleb thought it was kind of paranoid, but Phil had just made happy noises about being able to play Call of Duty with the sound off. “You should go have one,” he said. “You sound like you did when you had croup.” 

“When did I have croup? I don’t remember.” Caleb put the book down in his lap. 

“You were really little,” Uncle Theo said. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember. Your mom and dad had to take you to the hospital for an oxygen tent. Bad stuff, Caley. You came out of it all right, though.” He rolled over onto his side and planted his face in a pillow. 

“Oh,” Caleb said, and picked up The Yiddish Policemen’s Union again. Mom said it would be interesting for him, and it was, except it was really hard to get back into after a week in the hospital with doctors running tests what felt like every five minutes. His skin hurt so much in there that he couldn’t pick up a book, so he’d just slept a lot. It still hurt, just not as much since some of the stitches started dissolving. 

It was quiet for a while. Uncle Theo made soft grunting noises that meant he was close to falling asleep, and every so often, Phil whispered something under his breath about how someone needed to die, or a happy “yesssss!” when they did. Caleb curled his legs up under him in Uncle Theo’s armchair and tried to get back into Meyer Landsman’s story. 

But he couldn’t. His knees kept jiggling uncontrollably, and the words on the page blurred from sudden tears filling his eyes. He blinked them away and wiped his face on his hand, and thankfully, they didn’t come back. What was _wrong_ with him, crying all the time? He was okay, wasn’t he? Nobody had said anything except how glad they were that he was alive, but if he were them, he’d be disappointed in him for being such a baby. 

Phil didn’t have any of this stuff going on in his head. Phil was just fine, and he’d gotten a bad concussion, not like Caleb’s stupid sore throat. They were just bruises. There was no reason he should have nightmares that made Mom come running into the room where he and Phil were staying – she said it was okay, it was just stress, but he knew it was his fault she needed so many naps. He was nothing but a whiny little kid who took up too much of everyone’s time. 

“So,” Uncle Theo said, “when are you two going back to school?” 

Phil clacked some keys. “I’m going back tomorrow,” he said. “Caleb doesn’t have to go back until next week ‘cause he’s not supposed to talk much.” 

“Mm, makes sense.” Uncle Theo rolled over on his back, eyes closed. The scars on his face were awful, all pink and gross-looking. The big one that split his eyebrow, the one Bill had said almost got his eye, had leaked clear stuff ever since he came home and Caleb could hardly look at it without wanting to throw up. “You rest your voice, Caleb, okay? You got squeezed pretty hard.” 

“Okay,” Caleb said as quietly as he could. “I know.” The school said he had to come back or he’d have to do summer school to catch up on what he missed, and he didn’t want that. The idea of school made him sweat, though. Bright lights, other people all around him, and they _said_ no one was going to get past the front desk, but Nazis could do a lot of stuff that other people couldn’t when they really wanted to kill you. They shouldn’t have been able to get to him and Phil and Uncle Theo in the parking lot without someone yelling and they had anyway. You couldn’t trust anyone. 

That was a scared thought, he realized, and said _Stupid!_ to himself. Everyone had bigger problems than him. There was Phil, and Uncle Theo still moved slowly. Bill had the worst problems of all because his favorite cousins were dead – drowned in some kind of speedboat thing while their son was at home with a babysitter – but he didn’t cry downstairs in front of everyone. No, he was talking to his family to take responsibility like Mom always told them to, and Caleb wasn’t. _It’s my fault._ The thought was a knife in his head. 

A bell bonged, and he jumped in his seat for a second. “Doorbell,” Uncle Theo said. _Oh_. Just the doorbell. The doorbell was safe. 

“I’ll get it,” Caleb said. Putting his book on the little table next to his armchair, he got up to go to the door. “You don’t have to get up.” The doctors told Mom that Uncle Theo shouldn’t move for a few days if he could help it, otherwise he could puncture something inside or tear his stitches. 

Uncle Theo put up his hand. “No, Caley, you’ll just scare ‘em with your Darth Maul voice,” he said. “Let me get it.” He tumbled over on his side and almost fell off the couch to his knees, then got up slowly, supporting himself on the couch arm. “Probably Dwight with a casserole or something.” 

“Darth Maul,” said Phil with a quiet laugh. Tried to say, anyway, because his voice cracked right in the middle of the second word. “Shit!” He pounded his thigh with a fist, and Caleb watched his cheeks turn bright pink. Why was Phil upset? Bill said it just meant he was growing up. Phil was so weird, but whenever he said he didn’t understand him, Mom started laughing. 

Uncle Theo put his hands on his hips. “Watch your mouth, Philly.” 

“Sorry.” Phil slumped down a little and started clacking on the keyboard again. “It’s just really annoying.” 

“No, I get it,” said Uncle Theo with a nod. The doorbell bonged again and he winced, covering his face with one hand. “I’m coming!” he shouted towards the entryway. “Jeez. You got an _invalid_ over here.” One hand on his belly, he headed out of the living room, shuffling more than walking. 

He knew he didn’t technically have to get the door, but Caleb followed him anyway. His belly churned with the knowledge that he should’ve been selfless and said no, he’d get it. If Uncle Theo ruptured something, that would be his fault, too. Mom’s tiredness, Uncle Theo having to worry about anything except that he was hurt, everyone’s ruptures…the only thing that wasn’t his fault was Bill’s cousins dying, and even that could be God punishing them, maybe. 

Uncle Theo braced himself against the floor with a grunt and wrenched the front door open. “Hi,” he said. “Can I help you?” 

So it wasn’t Dwight. Caleb inched up a little ways behind him to see who else would come and bring them casseroles; Brian Feldman and Danny Reisberg had filled up the fridge as soon as they heard about Bill. But it wasn’t either of them or anyone else he knew. An old lady stood there, white-haired and tiny, with a man in a blue polo shirt clutching one of her arms. 

“Who the hell are you?” Uncle Theo asked, and now his voice was hard and cold. This had to be someone dangerous, and the one person they’d been warned about who could possibly get people to hurt them was the reason they were staying here in the first place. An old woman, a Nazi grandma, _shit!_

Caleb ducked back into the living room as fast as he could and peered around the entranceway. His heart began to pound and a roaring sound filled his ears, but he had to see. He had to protect Uncle Theo again if she brought people to attack them, no matter how scared he was. 

The old woman loudly sucked her lips into her mouth and chewed on them for a while as a whistling noise came out of her. Was that normal? Was she about to die? It was probably okay, he decided, to wish for a Nazi grandma to die. God would forgive him. But just as he resolved not to feel guilty for it, she released her lips and sighed. “Why did you kill my grandsons?” she asked. “I sent them to you to discuss.” She had a steadier voice than he’d thought, and she sounded almost American except for a little bit of a German accent, not the evil Nazi accent he’d heard on TV when Uncle Theo let him watch The Devil’s Arithmetic. 

Uncle Theo’s tightly-curled fists suddenly relaxed, but his shoulders got even tighter. “What?” 

“I asked you why you killed my grandsons,” she said. “I am Gretchen Brunner. May I come in?” 

Caleb retreated even farther so she wouldn’t see him, but he could still hear Uncle Theo give an angry-sounding sigh through his nose. “Coat off,” he said, “you turn out your pockets, and your stooge here drives his van down to the end of the block and stays there until we’re done talking. You’ll understand if maybe I don’t trust first appearances anymore.” 

“Caleb?” There was a hand on his shoulder. Caleb jumped in place and spun around, but it was only Phil. “Who’s visiting?” 

“Nazi Grandma,” Caleb whispered. “She probably wants to hurt us. Uncle Theo’s checking her for weapons, I think.” The lady was such a prune that he didn’t see how she could carry any weapons on her without them being noticed right away, but Uncle Theo was still smart to check. 

Phil’s eyes widened. “Oh, fuck,” he said, and peered around the edge of the wall. Caleb copied him. Everyone was still where they’d been, so no attacks. Uncle Theo didn’t have his hands in his pockets, so he wasn’t pulling out a knife. _Maybe_ …Caleb could barely let himself think it. _Maybe she’s safe_. She probably wouldn’t have asked about her grandsons right away if she wanted to lure Uncle Theo into a false sense of security. 

“Well?” said Uncle Theo. She hadn’t answered him yet? Maybe she was messed up in the head. That could explain why she’d come to a Jewish person’s house with only one guy for backup, and not even a big one. Caleb’s heart slowed down just a little, even though he was still scared enough to have to pee. “Piss or get off the pot. That’s my final offer.” 

Nazi Grandma lifted her chin. “I’ll comply,” she said, “but this is not my stooge. He’s an attendant at my nursing home.” She turned to the man in the blue polo, and Caleb gave him a more thorough once-over. He was a lot shorter than Uncle Theo, and less bulky, too. Uncle Theo could definitely beat him in a fight with one hand if he were healthy, but Caleb thought that all three of them could overpower the man if they worked together now. “Go do as the man says, Kevin. Take the car down to the end of the block. I’ll text you when we’ve finished.” 

“You got it, Mrs. Brunner,” Kevin said. “Need any help getting through the door?” 

“No,” she replied, “there are no stairs. I can come in under my own power. I’ll talk to you later.” 

Uncle Theo held the door open for her while she creaked into the house (he couldn’t hear any creaking, but Caleb thought there was probably a lot of it going on in her joints, with how old and slow she was). “Dave Mortensen said that you lived on your own,” he said, and shut and locked the door once she was inside. “How recent is this nursing home business?” 

“His information is significantly out of date.” She began to unbutton her long brown plaid coat. “I had to move a few years ago because the stairs in my house were too difficult. Herman and Bolgen live there –“ She cut herself off. Caleb thought he could see her hands trembling on the buttons. “They lived there.” 

“Huh,” Uncle Theo said, and crossed his arms. He didn’t make any move to help her with her coat. She might have been a Nazi, but Caleb was still glad Mom wasn’t awake, because she would be all over Uncle Theo’s case for being rude. “Who gets the house now?” 

She shrugged. “I suppose I need to sell it. Those two were my only grandchildren.” 

Uncle Theo’s lips thinned. He was probably fighting not to say ‘good riddance’ or ‘fuck those assholes,’ both of which Caleb had heard him spit out more than once today when he moved too fast and hurt himself. “That’s a shame,” he said instead. His tone said that he didn’t believe that for a second. Then he looked around and his eyes landed on Caleb. “Caley,” he said, “do you mind running upstairs and getting Bill? I want witnesses.” 

An embarrassing squeak came out of Caleb’s mouth. Quickly enough that made him dizzy, he scurried a few steps back into the living room, his back against the wall. Nazi Grandma had to know he was the one who’d killed her grandson. She’d be out for his blood. 

Phil poked his head out a little farther. “It’s just me, Uncle Theo,” he said. “Caleb’s still reading.” What was he doing? Now she’d just kill him instead when Caleb was the one who really deserved it. He was a way better brother than Caleb deserved. 

“Fine.” It sounded like Uncle Theo was trying not to laugh, his voice was that tight. “Then _tell_ Caleb to run upstairs and get Bill. You can go, too. If he’s on the phone, tell him it’s important – I don’t want to wake your mom up.” 

Phil nodded. “Take my hand,” he whispered to Caleb. “Then we’re gonna run up the stairs, okay?” 

“Okay,” Caleb said. Phil never wanted to hold hands anymore, not since he turned ten and said he was too old to do a little-kid thing like that. He grabbed onto his brother’s hand. “Sorry I’m sweaty.” Phil’s hands had grown so much over the past few months, and now his fingers were way longer than Caleb’s, his palm warm and dry. 

“No problem.” Phil squeezed his hand. “Okay, _go_.” He didn’t need to say it twice. Together, they booked it out of the living room – past Uncle Theo, whom Caleb thought looked a little amused, even if he couldn’t make it out clearly – and pounded up the stairs as fast as they could. 

The upstairs hallway was quiet and dark, and suddenly Caleb remembered that Mom was supposed to be napping right now. He really hoped they hadn’t woken her up. “Where’s Rug?” he said, his breath coming hard. “I haven’t seen him in forever.” 

“Probably napping with Mom,” Phil said. “He likes her. Come on, let’s go find Bill.” He let go of Caleb’s hand, and Caleb found himself a little disappointed with that, though saying it to Phil would probably make his brother laugh at him. “Think he’s in their room?” 

“Yeah, probably,” Caleb said. They crept past the closed door of one of the guest rooms, where Mom had to be sleeping, and came up on the door to Uncle Theo and Bill’s bedroom. It was half-open, and from behind it, Caleb heard Bill’s quiet voice involved in some kind of conversation. “Bill?” he said tentatively as he knocked on the door. “It’s Caleb. Can Phil and I come in?” 

The conversation stopped, and Bill said “Hm? Yes, come in, you two. Sorry, Ads, I’m going to have to pause.” 

“Oh, I’m _so_ disappointed,” said the person on the other end of the call as Caleb pushed the door open. Bill was sitting on the rumpled bed with his laptop open to Skype, and the person on the other end looked like he was probably related. They had the same hair. “Who’s that, the nephews?” 

Bill nodded and turned the computer to face more towards the doorway. “Ads, these are Phil and Caleb, Theo’s nephews. Phil, Caleb, this is my cousin, Adam Took. He’s been very helpful these past few days.” 

“Caleb, is it?” Adam cocked his head. “I heard you killed a bloke with a knitting needle. Good on you, then.” He raised an arm and saluted with a deadly-serious expression on his face, then immediately broke into a smile. “Your mum must be proud.” 

Caleb wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly feeling like he was shrinking. “Not a killer,” he said in a voice that came out wavery. “I didn’t mean to do it.” Now he couldn’t even knit anymore, either, even if he’d thought he was okay when he first came home. Mom gave him a project he’d been working on and it was like the needles just fell out of his hands. Then when he went to sleep, he dreamed of getting strangled with a scarf and woke up crying. 

“Ads! Jesus!” Bill flipped his cousin off, and Phil’s laugh made Caleb’s stomach unknot. “You don’t talk about that with a PTSD victim. What’s wrong with you? He’s traumatized!” 

Adam hit himself hard in the forehead. “God, I’m sorry,” he said. He really did look like he was. “I didn’t think of that. All right, Caleb, you’ve got full permission to have at me if your uncle ever brings you here for a visit. Fists, kicks, whatever. I’ll be completely unhurt, I promise.” 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Bill said. “I know you scream and cower like a three-year-old. Anyhow.” He looked at Phil and Caleb with raised eyebrows. “What can I do for you?” 

Caleb didn’t know how to put it. His tongue went heavy in his mouth and he tried to open it, but all that came out was a gulp. Phil helped, though, by saying “The Nazi grandma is here. Uncle Theo let her in to talk, but he wants witnesses. He said we couldn’t wake Mom up – he wants you.” 

“Did they just say ‘Nazi grandma’?” Adam asked. “Bill, what’s going on over there?” 

Bill looked at the computer like he’d forgotten he was in the middle of a conversation. “Nothing that concerns you, as long as I get my arse downstairs. I’ll talk to you later, Ads, all right? Call me back in a few hours.” 

“I’ll raise hell if you don’t,” Adam said. “Cheers, Bill.” 

The call ended with a _bloop_ noise and Bill scrambled off the bed. “Now you’d better tell me _exactly_ what’s going on,” he said, charging out the door. Caleb ran to catch up and he could hear Phil clunking along behind him. Ever since Phil’s feet had started growing fast again, he’d stopped walking quietly. 

“Nazi Grandma’s in a nursing home,” Caleb answered. It came out in a puff, since Bill had started down the stairs and he and Phil had to follow. “She got them to drive her here ‘cause both of her grandsons are dead, I think. Now she wants to talk to Uncle Theo and he wants backup.” 

“Too right he does. He’d better.” Bill stopped at the foot of the steps. “Should I go get the camera?” 

Phil came up in front of Caleb and shook his head. “I don’t think so. He just wants you.” 

Bill stroked his chin, which was a lot more stubbly than usual. He’d probably forgotten to shave, Caleb reasoned, because of the death in his family. It was kind of like _shivah_ , although Bill probably didn’t mean it that way. “Now, where’s he taken her? Ah!” He snapped his fingers. “Kitchen, I’d bet. Follow me, you two.” 

They arrived just as Uncle Theo was scooting his chair in at the head of the table, with Nazi Grandma at the other end. “Bill,” Uncle Theo said, looking up at them with relief all over his face. “Good, you’re here. Phil, Caleb, you two don’t need to hear this. Go hang out in the living room or something.” 

“You promise?” Phil asked. “And you promise you’ll yell if something’s wrong? ‘Cause Bill’s cousin said he’s gonna raise hell if anything happens to Bill. We’ll raise hell if anything happens to you. Right, Caleb?” 

Caleb nodded. “Right.” 

“I promise,” Uncle Theo told them. He put his open hands on the table, palms up. “I won’t let things get hairy. Go do what you were doing before this started.” 

Phil left, but Caleb didn’t. He stood just outside the doorway to the kitchen instead, back against the wall like it had been in the living room, and hoped that for once the conversation would be boring. 

“Okay,” Uncle Theo said, “now we can talk.” 

Caleb pressed the side of his face against the cool wall – he felt like he had a fever, but he wasn’t sick. Maybe it came from looking at Nazi Grandma. She didn’t look evil when she was sitting at the kitchen table, just small and old and mean. He still didn’t trust her not to try to hurt Uncle Theo, though, since even small people could leave a lot of damage. 

The next person to talk wasn’t Nazi Grandma, though; it was Bill. “Before you say anything, I’d like to tell you the extent of the damage you’ve caused to my fiance’s extended family,” he said. “Your grandsons are the reason Theo’s sister’s husband is dead. Every child in our group of friends watched him get hit by their car. You’ve no doubt seen how injured Theo is and his nephews are hurt nearly as badly. Do I make myself understood?” 

“They…” Her voice shook. “They killed your brother-in-law?” 

“Are you seriously saying you _didn’t know?_ ” 

“I didn’t.” Caleb peered through the doorway in time to see her rest her head in her hands. “When did he die?” 

Uncle Theo crossed his arms. “You gotta be kidding me. There’s no way you don’t know. Fourth of July, 2013, almost two years ago. It was a hit-and-run, and Mortensen said he’s pretty sure it was their fault.” He lifted his head and Caleb moved back so he wouldn’t be seen. 

“They told me nothing,” she said. “I promise, I knew nothing about this if they did it. Herman and Bolgen came back when they said they would and they visited me in the home. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I _promise_.” 

There was a long pause, and finally, Uncle Theo said “Bullshit.” 

“ _Theo_ ,” Bill warned him, disapproval in his tone. “Be civil.” 

“Don’t tell me to be civil to Nazis, Bill,” Uncle Theo said. “This is my house. Least she can do is not tell me fucking lies two hundred feet away from where Vince got hit.” Was it really that close? Caleb shivered. Just thinking about it put a strange, dizzy feeling in his head. The car had gone so fast. Suddenly, Dad had gone from pushing Galil out of the way to flying through the air like he was doing a flip, except afterwards, he didn’t get up. And then the bleeding started. 

“It’s not a lie.” Caleb frowned, but nothing in her voice indicated that she was lying. It didn’t shake now, and she didn’t sound like she was trying to remember pieces of a story to tell people later instead of the actual facts. “If it’s true, then they acted of their own accord. We rarely talked about you.” 

Uncle Theo snorted. “Yeah, well, once was enough,” he said. “Look what they did to me. Do you see all this crap on my face?” 

“The ‘crap’ on your face is leaking,” Bill said, “and it’s disgusting. Just a second, I’m getting you a paper towel.” 

Caleb sneaked another look and wished he hadn’t. That stuff was gross, and when he’d asked, Bill had said that even he didn’t know exactly what was in it. “Lymph, interstitial fluid, plasma components – they’re all the same thing, essentially,” he’d said, and Caleb only understood that last part. Uncle Theo understood all the medical stuff, and that was just because he and Bill were together, but Caleb knew a lot more about antibiotics now than he’d ever wanted to learn. 

Uncle Theo dabbed the paper towel Bill gave him against the cut in his left eyebrow. “All these cuts on my face are a gift from your grandsons,” he said. “They ambushed me and my nephews in a _parking lot_ and called us kikes. Are you still sticking with the story that you just sent them here to talk?” 

“Yes,” she answered, a little more forcefully now. “ _Yes_. I read your article. How many guards at Buchenwald, I ask you, were called Azzo? It had to be my husband you spoke about. I called Herman and Bolgen at university and asked them if they knew a Theodor Derensky.” 

“How did you even find the article?” Bill put in. “It was published in an online magazine, right, Theo? You can’t get a paper subscription to that.” 

“I do have a computer, you know.” Now she just sounded annoyed. “What’s the expression? I’m old, but I haven’t yet died.” 

Uncle Theo flicked a finger against the table. “Old, not dead.” 

“Yes,” she said, “old, not dead. Several people I know at the home have survived the Second World War, and they sent me links. You may imagine that I was very shocked to find my husband’s name spread out in public, like some sort of disgrace in the police blotter. Do you have no shame?” 

Caleb sat down on the floor and, by instinct, clapped his hands over his ears. When Uncle Theo shouted, it was loud enough that he jumped when everything was normal. Now that all this stuff had happened to him, well…Uncle Theo had raised his voice to talk about how much he loved pizza when Mom called him last night, and it still made Caleb run out of the room. Phil came, too, but it was to rub his back. 

No noise came through the cover of his hands. Caleb cautiously uncovered them and heard Uncle Theo laugh, but it didn’t sound like he thought anything was funny. “Shame,” he said. “I don’t _have_ any shame, lady. The world needs to know about what your people did so it doesn’t fucking happen again. That’s why I met with the reporter. How about you? You got any shame about teaching your grandsons to be Nazi scumfucks?” 

Instead of answering the question, she sighed. “Do you know how old I was when I was married?” 

“No,” Uncle Theo said. “Young, I’m guessing?” 

“I was nineteen,” she said. “Have you heard of the BDM, Mr. Derensky?” 

“ _Doctor_ Derensky. Yeah, I have. You were in there?” 

Caleb peeked in and saw her nod. “Yes. It was how I was raised. I was born in 1922, Dr. Derensky. We were all encouraged to marry young and bear children for Germany, so this is what I did. I suppose your father had no way of knowing that I was pregnant when he killed my husband.” 

He’d read the phrase _taken aback_ in plenty of books, but hadn’t ever found a facial expression that fit it as well as Uncle Theo’s did now. “You think that’s why your grandsons are dead,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “Some kind of revenge thing for my grandfather.” 

She nodded. “And your father. The article said he was traumatized. I would be, too, if I killed when I was fourteen.” 

Caleb was only twelve. What did that make _him?_ Was he traumatized or just a monster? He wrapped his arms around himself again and squeezed tightly, his breath coming out hard. It didn’t help like Omer said it would. “I promise, it wasn’t revenge,” Uncle Theo said. “It was self-defense. You didn’t hear my nephews screaming, so that’s something _you_ wouldn’t know.” 

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Nazi Grandma said, shaking her head. “I sent them to you to have a discussion about this slander. I said nothing about violence, so I’ll ask you again – why did you kill them?” 

Uncle Theo’s eyes narrowed and his brows came down. “Discussion?” He stroked his chin. “Either they were dumb as hell or you’re lying like a rug. You want to know why I killed your nephews? I’ll tell you –“ His eyes landed on Caleb and lit up, and he beckoned with a forefinger. “Come over here, Caley. Show Mrs. Brunner your throat.” 

“I don’t want to!” She’d just squeeze it again. He deserved it, he knew, but Caleb didn’t want to die. Almost dying had hurt so badly. “Don’t make me do it.” 

“Caleb…” 

“ _No!_ ” he cried. It came out like a scared shriek, which he guessed it was, and his throat felt scraped raw with the effort – he wasn’t supposed to yell like this, just keep quiet. He couldn’t let her touch it, though, not when her grandson had been the one to squeeze his throat so hard he thought he was going to black out before he frantically shoved his needle into the first part of the man’s body he could reach. Killing him was an accident and he wished she believed that. 

Footsteps beat hard behind him, and suddenly Phil was there next to him. “What’re you doing to him?” he shouted. “Did you hurt him? What’d she do, Uncle Theo?” 

“I…” Nazi Grandma cleared her throat, wide-eyed. “Your uncle wanted your brother to show me the marks on his throat.” 

Phil put his hands on his hips. “You don’t get to see that. Caleb has a hard time already.” Striding forward into the kitchen, he stopped in front of her and pulled his T-shirt over his head. “You should look at _me_ instead. Those jackholes cut me up so bad I had to have antibiotics for almost a week.” 

“Phil, what did I say about the language?” Uncle Theo asked. “You’re being rude.” 

Caleb shoved his index finger in his mouth and bit down. Phil’s chest was almost as messed up as Uncle Theo’s face, covered in raw scars. It looked like one of the cuts had almost taken off one of his nipples. Suddenly he remembered the first, or maybe it was the second, day after they’d come to the hospital; he’d heard Phil moaning in the bed next to him, and Mom had said something about how he was going to stay ‘in one piece, not to worry.’ Was this what Phil had been worried about? 

Phil had it worse off than he did. He couldn’t let his brother take all the crap. Caleb swallowed hard and followed Phil into the kitchen, then lifted his chin to show his bruises. “I got hurt, too.” The angle made his voice come out even weirder than it usually did now. “I didn’t do it on purpose. He was _choking_ me.” 

The old woman looked at him for a long time after he put his chin down. “You’re the boy with the knitting needle,” she said. “You say that Herman was choking you?” 

“Yeah,” Caleb said. “I almost passed out.” 

“He came closer to dying than fainting,” Bill said. He spoke quietly, but his jaw was clenched. “Those bruises were far worse a week ago and he may have to have speech therapy for his voice. Are you proud of yourself, then? Did your command to discuss an article that Theo had _every right_ to be quoted in lend itself to this sort of damage?” 

She blinked a few times, slowly. “I told them to –“ 

“Tell me this,” Uncle Theo cut in. His glare was a laser, and Caleb sure as anything didn’t want to sit in front of it to see if it could cut. “Do you still believe all the Nazi shit? Phil,” he added, turning his head, “put your shirt back on. No one wants to see that.” 

Phil scowled and flapped his shirt open. “Says you,” he said with it pulled halfway on. “I helped you just now.” 

“Whatever, kid.” Uncle Theo leaned forward across the table and stared at Nazi Grandma. “So _you haven’t answered my question_.” 

She shrugged her shoulders, raising her hands up in the air. “What does it matter what I believe?” she returned. “You’ve won. There is no fight to be had on this matter anymore. Your people live all over the world – you even have a country to call your own. What more do you want?” 

Uncle Theo flushed red, first up his neck and then on his face. Caleb wondered for a second if he was going to reach out across the table and throttle her. “Could use fewer people trying to kill me, for one thing,” he said. “You think anti-Semitism’s over? Fuck, you have a lot to learn. There were some ancient shits at the university who didn’t even want to hire me.” 

“Yet you have a job now, I take it,” she said. “You haven’t suffered. It was your parents who suffered and they have been dead for a long time, haven’t they?” She let out a long breath through her nose. “I would advise you not to bring up other people’s struggles in comparison to your own. You’ll come up short.” 

His uncle didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Luckily for him, Caleb was there. “You don’t have any right to talk about the Holocaust like that!” he said, angry on behalf of Uncle Theo, Mom even if she wasn’t there, and the grandparents he’d never had a chance to meet because of sicknesses that the Nazis planted when they were younger than him. “My whole family got hurt because of people like you, so…so just _shut up!_ ” 

The echo of what he’d said reverberated in the air, and Caleb flinched, then looked down the table. Uncle Theo said nothing, but his mouth was curving into a tiny smile, and both Phil and Bill looked like they wanted to give him a high five. Nazi Grandma folded her age-spotted hands over each other on the table and looked at him, eyebrows high. “Control your nephew,” she said. 

Uncle Theo laughed through his closed lips, making a fart sound that Caleb only half-thought was by accident. “Lady,” he said, “you have no call to start lecturing people on their child-rearing skills.” He tapped the fingers of one hand on the table. “I’m not going to punch you out because you’re a guest and you’re about a million years old, but don’t you have anything better to do?” 

“I need to meet with multiple people regarding my grandsons’ remains,” she said, and now Bill was the one who flinched. It took some effort, but Caleb didn’t; she obviously wanted them to be weirded out at the idea of the skinheads’ dead bodies. “I suppose I ought to leave now. You’ve been hospitable enough.” 

“A lot more than you deserve,” Uncle Theo muttered, and Nazi Grandma’s expression collapsed into something even meaner. Caleb didn’t think Uncle Theo meant for that to be inaudible, either. “Do you need to text your unwitting accomplice to come pick you up?” 

She sniffed and took a smartphone, nicer even than the one Benny Budin had, out of her pants pocket. “I see where your nephews learned their manners,” she said. “Your own leave much to be desired. Yes, I need to text Kevin. I’ll only intrude on your time for a few more minutes – is that what you were trying to get at?” 

“On the nose,” said Uncle Theo, and leaned back in his chair to look at her down the length of his nose. Caleb had tried doing that expression himself in front of the mirror, but he just looked stupid trying; maybe you needed a long nose to do it right. He hoped he’d grow a bigger one when puberty came. 

Nazi Grandma finished her text, put her phone away, and sized Uncle Theo up with her lips pressed together. “You know, you’re not bad-looking,” she said. “Seventy years ago, I might have given you a bit of attention if I saw you on the street.” 

Bill leaped up from his seat. “Did you just say what I _think_ you said?” he shouted, his jaw clenched so tight that Caleb could see the cords in his neck (and with Bill’s pudge, they were rarely visible). “Did you tell my fiancé that –“ 

“ _Bill_ ,” Uncle Theo said, a warning in his voice. “Don’t.” 

“Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t say,” Bill snarled, and charged. Uncle Theo threw out an arm and caught him across the belly, but it barely slowed down his ability to talk. “Have you any idea what your bloody fucking war did to my father? He had PTSD for decades! Screamed when airplanes flew overhead, melted down at any changes in his routine, not to mention the nightmares Theo’s family had to deal with!” 

“Bill, dammit.” Uncle Theo got up too fast, judging by the pain in his face, and took Bill by the shoulders. “You’re being a bad ally, Bill. I know you got problems right now, but this isn’t the time. Go upstairs.” 

“Theo!” 

Uncle Theo lowered his voice into a dangerous octave, the deep tone that meant trouble. “Bill. Now. I’m handling this.” 

Bill’s nose wrinkled and his lips trembled as he stood there silently, looking at him. Then suddenly, he ran out of the kitchen and, by the sound of it, up the stairs. 

Caleb checked to see that Phil wasn’t about to do anything stupid, either. Except for his mouth hanging open, his brother looked mostly normal, so that was safe. Uncle Theo pinched the skin between his eyes. “Fuck,” he said. “Why today?” 

“I’m going to leave now,” said Nazi Grandma tightly, standing up. She held herself like Uncle Theo had personally offended her, her ancestors, and every single Nazi who had ever existed. “Kevin has come to pick me up. There’s no need to see me to the door.” 

“No, no.” Uncle Theo’s face and voice were both so tired. “I’ll show you out. Come on.” He shuffled out of the kitchen and into the front lobby, and Caleb followed him, darting in front of him to open the door. “Thanks, Caley.” 

“No problem,” Caleb said. “I know it’s heavy.” 

Nazi Grandma took her coat off the rack next to the door and put it on without bothering to button it. “This has been an enlightening visit,” she said, pushed open the screen door, and turned around. “I meant it when I said you’re good-looking,” she said, “but given the caliber of man you are, I would have rather hired you from Buchenwald for a night than seen you on the street.” She let the screen door drop. 

Uncle Theo breathed in deeply, let it out in a rush, and slammed the door in her face. 

“Uncle Theo,” said Caleb tentatively after a few seconds of watching him stare like she’d made off with his soul, “what did she mean about hiring you from Buchenwald?” It had to be something bad. Maybe he’d have gotten put on one of those work details and killed with too much lifting, like in the books he and Phil had to read for Hebrew school. 

With a crack, Uncle Theo’s forehead hit the door, and he let out a horrible scream into the wood, full of pain and anger and – he didn’t even know what all was in there. Caleb’s heart thudded in his chest as forehead met door over and over and the screaming didn’t stop. Did he need to get Mom or something? Maybe Uncle Theo was trying to kill himself, and if he was, then Caleb had to stop him. 

“Uncle _Theo!_ ” he said louder, but Uncle Theo didn’t stop banging his head into the door. His screams turned into howls that sounded like sobs. “Phil, I need help!” Caleb yelled, desperate, and hugged Uncle Theo around the waist. His uncle’s whole body shook; he squeezed tighter, like he did when he needed to give himself a hug and light pressure didn’t help. 

He heard Phil come in, but didn’t look up from his hug to look at him. Uncle Theo collapsed against the door, recognizably crying now, and Caleb pressed his face into his back. “Help me hug Uncle Theo,” he said. “That woman said terrible stuff to him.” 

“Yeah, of course.” Phil came around and hugged both of them. His head reached up to Uncle Theo’s neck now, so he could get a tighter grip than Caleb. “You’ll be okay, Uncle Theo,” he said, not sounding at all like he believed it. “Promise. Caleb and I are here, okay?” 

Slowly, Uncle Theo turned around in their arms and put his own around Caleb and Phil. All three of them leaned against the door then, and they stayed that way for a long time.

ii.

Her brother had sent her up here to sleep when she came home, but although she was so tired she’d thought she might fall asleep in traffic on the drive back from the hospital, Dinah found that she couldn’t. Not even drawing both the curtains and the blinds in Theo’s better guest room helped. She’d consequently spent the past two hours on her back in bed with her eyes closed, with Rug cuddled up on her stomach for about half of that - he’d gotten interested and hopped up on the bed after padding into the room and greeting her with a soft meow.

It was nice in here: cool and relaxing, with the white-noise machine Theo had bought the first time she stayed here on a high, crackling hum. Dinah sighed and scratched Rug’s head. Any voices from downstairs were faint at this distance, no matter if there were rowdy visitors in the house. There was a distinct possibility that she could actually get to sleep now. 

Then the screams started. Her eyes popped open. _Am I dreaming?_ These days, screams filled her head while she slept, her sons’ and her brother’s both. _No_. No, she realized as the screams lengthened, filled with so much pain that her belly squeezed with it, she wasn’t dreaming. They always faded after she realized what was going on. These didn’t. 

Whether it was the noise or Rug frantically digging his claws into her belly, Dinah was up _now_. Rug jumped off her stomach onto the floor and she sat up, got out of bed, and ran barefooted down the hall in record time. “Phil? Caleb? _Theo?_ ” Oh, fuck, one of them had probably popped an abdominal stitch and was in the kind of pain that required another trip to the hospital. 

She stopped short at the top of the stairs. There was Theo, leaning against the front door with his head hanging down while both Phil and Caleb hugged him. The sounds he made now weren’t as loud as they had been even minutes earlier, but they were still hardly human. She put a foot forward to go downstairs and see what the hell was going on, but something kept her on the first step down. _They don’t need me right now_ , she thought. She might make things worse if she tried. 

Dinah sat down on the step and rested her elbows on her thighs, then her chin in her hands. She could wait as long as Theo needed. Something had clearly happened that had nearly thrown him off the proverbial mental cliff, but _what?_ He was so worried about being attacked again that he’d agreed with Dwight on her and the boys coming here. Surely an attack would have left a physical mark, and she would have heard it. 

After a while, Theo patted Phil and Caleb’s backs and drew them closer of his own accord. “Fuck,” he said. “You kids.” His voice had gone as hoarse as Caleb’s, and deep enough to be almost subsonic. “What’d I do to deserve you?” 

Caleb took his face out of Theo’s armpit and gazed up at him. “I dunno,” he said. “A lot?” 

“He’s probably right,” said Dinah as she stood up and walked the rest of the way down the stairs. “What the hell happened down here, Theo? Are you okay?” She gave her brother and sons a once-over. None of their stitches had reopened, it looked like, although of course she couldn’t see the ones on Phil’s and Theo’s abdomens with their shirts on. 

Theo sighed. “Gonna let go of you two now, okay?” he said, and disengaged from the hug. “I’m sorry, Dee. I woke you up, didn’t I?” 

“Yep,” Dinah said, and put her hands on his shoulders, looking up into his face. “Theo, _tell me what happened_. You were screaming louder than the white-noise machine.” 

“Really? I’m surprised you didn’t hear Bill earlier. And Caleb.” Theo pointed at him. “Caley, you were a champ. I’m sorry I tried to…I’m sorry about the throat thing. I shouldn’t have tried to make you.” 

Caleb vigorously shook his head. “She was being really horrible,” he said. “I’d have asked me to show it to her, too. What did it mean, the thing she said about Buchenwald?” 

“Nothing you need to know.” Theo scratched the back of his head and grimaced, then swayed in place – not too much, but enough that Dinah stepped back. “Oh, God, my head.” 

“You should lie down.” Phil took Theo by the arm and began to pull him towards the living room. “I think you hurt yourself a lot. Bill said you already broke your skull, right?” 

What had he done to his head _now?_ Dinah accompanied Phil and Theo into the living room and helped Theo lie down on the couch with his head on a pillow as all the while, he set his jaw harder and harder. “You tell me what’s going on, and who this _she_ person is” she said when they were finished, and sat down on Theo’s socked feet. “Boys, go hang out with Bill for a while.” 

Good kids that they were, they got the hell out instead of protesting. Theo rubbed his palm against his forehead, which Dinah noted had a hell of a red mark on it that would probably bruise. He had to have hit it against something pretty damn hard, but why? “The skinheads’ grandmother was over here,” he said. 

“And you let her in?” Dinah exclaimed. Of course it wasn’t Theo’s fault, so she knew it wasn’t fair to be angry, but she couldn’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be in the same situation. “What, her grandsons couldn’t take you out, so she tried to finish the job? Look at your head!” She stroked the red spot. 

Theo shook his head slightly. It looked like it still hurt. “No,” he said, “that was me. I kept banging my head against the front door when she was gone, ‘cause she said…” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Said I’m good-looking enough that she’d have looked at me on the street or something, but before she left, she said she’d have bought me from Buchenwald for a night instead. Because I'm…not really human or something.” 

“ _Bitch_ ,” said Dinah. She fucking hated gendered insults, but that was what the woman was. “Nazi bitch. Why was she even here, just to insult you and leave?” 

Theo looked at her for a moment, then closed his eyes again. “Said she wanted to know why I killed her grandsons. Phil and Caleb were nice enough to show her the war injuries. Mine don’t need showing – they’re obvious.” His next breath came out in a hiss through clenched front teeth. “I told her it was self defense because it _was_. Thank fuck she left, or I’d’ve used some self-defense on her prehistoric ass.” 

“So she didn’t bring anyone to fulfill a hit on you,” Dinah said, “just herself?” 

“Her and some guy from the nursing home. He drove her over.” His words were getting a little slurred, but she thought – hoped – that he was only tired. The first time he woke up after his surgery, he’d been barely comprehensible. “I made him stay at the end of the block. Don’t think he was after us, though. Just an aide.” 

Dinah stroked Theo’s hair away from the widow’s peak on his forehead. “She’s not worth scrambling your brain for, Theo,” she said. “You just finished almost dying. I can’t lose you because of an old Nazi.” 

“You won’t,” he said. “I had help anyway. Bill went off on her because of his dad’s PTSD from World War II, you should’ve seen it. Completely hysterical and everything. I had to tell him to go upstairs, since he wasn’t helping _at all_.” 

She turned her head at a noise from the stairs. “You’re kind of out of luck there,” she told him. “He’s here.” Caleb and Phil came down the stairs first, followed by a red-eyed but fairly composed Bill. “Want me to tell him to go away?” 

“No,” Theo said, albeit in a long-suffering, put-upon way. He opened his eyes. “Bill, what’s up?” 

“Your idiocy, apparently,” Bill said, and knelt next to the couch, probing at Theo’s forehead with the fingers of one hand. “Bashing your head against the door? I can’t believe you did that. Or rather I can, but I wish I couldn’t.” 

“Ow!” Theo wrinkled his forehead and tried to jerk his head away, but either Bill was too strong or he was too weak. Dinah would hazard a guess that it was a bit of both. “You can’t exactly talk about making stupid decisions. Was I the one doing the “let me at ‘em” pose, or was that you?” 

Bill tsked. “Me, but I can admit that. Your attitude under pressure from her is the only reason I didn’t call emergency services when I heard you screaming down here. Venting, I thought. Idiocy, really.” He smoothed both thumbs over the swelling mark. “This is going to be an enormous bruise.” 

“ _Ow_ ,” Theo repeated, seemingly more for emphasis than out of true pain. “Quit it, Bill. You already know it’s a bruise.” He closed his eyes again. “You’re not gonna take me back to the hospital, are you?” 

“I will if you start exhibiting neurological symptoms,” said Bill, “but otherwise, no. You’re already meant to go back next week for a post-surgical checkup. Dinah, would you possibly be able to take him?” He looked at her with pleading eyes. “I’ve already missed too many shifts taking care of him.” 

“What makes you think my boss will be any more understanding?” she said. She’d already missed more than a week of work to take care of her sons and visit her brother, and while she couldn’t be sure, she suspected her boss still held a grudge for the two months of leave she’d taken after Vince died. “I’ll try to move some things around. No promises, though.” 

Bill ran one hand gently through Theo’s hair. Theo tilted his head up and purred like his lazy cat. “Phil, Caleb, are you busy?” Dinah looked around and saw both of the boys, clustered around Theo’s laptop, glance up. “Why don’t you go play in the armory?” Bill suggested. “Just be careful. Your uncle won’t mind if you take out some – some bows and arrows to look at, will he?” She appreciated that he didn’t say ‘swords,’ given Caleb’s understandable sensitivity about it. 

“Yeah, _carefully_ ,” Theo answered. “No hitting ‘em against each other, you two got it? Otherwise, yeah, go play.” 

Phil and Caleb looked at each other with identical grins and then, wordlessly, raced each other up the stairs. Dinah cringed when Phil’s loud, clumsy stride made the old steps creak. She had to see about either getting him smaller shoes or talking to him about slowing the hell down. 

“So was there something you wanted to talk about?” she asked after they were gone. Bill, in those times when he ventured downstairs, had been remarkably candid with the boys about what had happened to Theo and, more recently, to two beloved members of his own family. “You usually don’t mind them being around here.” 

“Mm.” Bill nodded, stroked Theo’s beard with both palms, and abruptly got up to sit in the armchair nearest the couch. “It’s a bit of a sensitive matter,” he said, more quietly than he’d been speaking earlier. “My favorite cousins have died, you know.” He looked down at his lap and blinked hard. 

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ve told you this a lot, but I’m so sorry, Bill.” She thought it probably felt much the same for him as it had for her – or worse, really - when she was twelve and her great-uncle Greg died. He was still family, regardless of how little she saw him. 

Theo reached out an arm and then let it fall to his side, as if trying to pat Bill and realizing it was futile. “It sucks. I wish it hadn’t happened to you, Bill. Or them. They were really good people.” 

Bill rubbed his eyes with his palms. “And a speedboat accident, of all things. That’s how they died – drowning. I know Prim’s an amazing swimmer. _Was_ …was an amazing swimmer.” 

“Maybe it’s like in _Bridge to Terabithia_ ,” Dinah said. She’d had to read the book when she was in sixth grade and it was still one of her favorites, so much so that she’d resolved a while ago to read it to Phil and Caleb and screw ‘we’re too old, Mom.’ “The girl hit her head on a rock and drowned, even though…oh, jeez, Bill. Sorry.” It probably wasn’t the best idea to talk about the gruesome details to the recently bereaved, she realized. 

Bill, who looked a little green, shook his head. “You were only trying to help,” he said. “Anyway, there are more worrying matters for me right now. Prim and Drogo’s son is now an orphan. Not even five yet and both of his parents are dead.” He pulled his knees up to his face and rested his chin on them, the picture of childish sorrow. Dinah could all but see a sad child with his face. “I’ve been talking with the family and things are a bit complicated, but the general consensus is that they…they wanted us to take him if anything should happen.” 

“They want _us_ to take Freddy? Us, like you and me?” Theo’s eyes opened wide. “Your family barely knows us!” Dinah heard the unspoken addition in his tone, too: _and we’re weird and I’m a Jew._ Bill’s family was perfectly nice as far as she could tell, but they were a little – well, homogenous. 

“Not the family,” Bill corrected. “Prim and Drogo. They thought he’d have a better chance of getting away from Michel Delving if we took him. Not that I was expecting it.” He broke off for a second before resuming. “But look at his mum. She had a first in computer science and I know she wasn’t terribly happy coming back.” 

Theo’s mouth was open just slightly, and Dinah didn’t think he even realized he was a prime flycatcher right now. “A – a kid? And a wedding. Fuck. Can we?” 

Bill frowned. Theo’s speech _was_ a little too garbled to be comprehensible as a statement, Dinah had to admit. “The question is do you want to, Theo? I do like him, but you’re my partner. You come first.” By the look on his face, Dinah knew _he_ wanted to, more than anything. “If you don’t want him here, I’ll tell Ads no.” 

“You fucking kidding?” Theo sat up with a muttered _ow_. “Of course I want him here! Lobotomelia won’t get her fuckin’ hands on him.” The glowing expression on his face could have lit up the room in place of the daylight shining through the front window. “Bill, I never thought I’d have a kid at all. Now I can. _We_ can. Say the word and he’ll be here tomorrow.” 

Bill stood up and came over to the couch, then threw his arms around Theo. “Not tomorrow,” he said in a tone to rival the look on Theo’s face. “There’s probate or something. I don’t know, I’m not a solicitor. Dammit, _lawyer_. It could be months before we’re approved.” 

Theo patted his back. “What’s going on? Do you need me to get Danny on it?” 

“Probably,” Bill said, and released Theo, then looked down the length of his legs to where Dinah was sitting. “Can you budge over a bit, Dinah?” She obligingly moved to sit on his ankles instead, and Bill took her previous spot. “There’s the issue of us living in an entirely different country and you not technically being family. Could be some homophobia in there as well.” 

“From your family?” Theo furrowed his brow. “They seemed pretty okay with us. I mean, the old geezers didn’t even express any disapproval when I made sex jokes.” 

“My family? No. Maybe,” Bill amended. “Lobelia and Olly are going to want him. They’re some of the more stable living relatives and they’ve got a son already. Louis is a bit older than Freddy.” He looked up at the ceiling and screwed up his mouth. “Prim’s side, that’s the Brandywines, they’re a bit more spread out around the countryside, not in Michel Delving proper. The other half of her blood is the Tooks, whom you’ve met already.” 

“So – what, the poor kid’s getting pulled two ways?” Dinah asked. 

“Three,” Bill said. “Drogo was a Baggins, like me. That side’s mostly older and a lot more conservative.” He leaned his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. “Drogo’s got two siblings. There’s his sister Dora and his brother Dudley, but I don’t think either of them want kids. God, why’d Prim have to choose the most _inconvenient_ set of relatives? I’m only a cousin a couple of times removed to Freddy.” 

“She thinks you’re awesome, maybe?” Theo suggested. “You know I do.” He wiggled his feet, probably trying to comfort Bill from beyond reaching distance. “Okay, did they have a will? If we’re officially in there as the preferred guardians or whatever the language is, things might be easier.” 

Bill’s eyes opened and he smiled just a little. “Yes, they did,” he said. “I was actually talking to Ads about that. The whole family’s in an uproar, all the sides of it. Bandy and Peggy are championing us as the best guardians because Bandy said she trusts Prim’s judgment more than lines of kinship.” 

“Good old Bandy,” Theo said, raising what looked like an imaginary glass in his cupped hand. “I knew I liked her.” 

“I know you like her. You e-mail her far too often for my liking.” With a shake of his head, Bill patted Theo’s legs a few times. “She pulled out that quote about how blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb and got a few people angry. Ads says he wishes he’d recorded it.” 

“Well...if they’re mad, then that sucks.” Theo sighed. “I hate shit like this.” 

The three of them lapsed into silence after that. There was really nothing to say, in Dinah’s opinion, that didn’t require a lot of time chewing over possible options. For one thing, she was definitely going to call Danny the next day and request some of his time off the clock to unravel this. No one was going to deprive her brother of a kid he wanted and live to be smug about it, that was for sure; he was a natural parent with Phil and Caleb. For fuck’s sake, he’d almost died to protect them. 

“Hey,” Theo said. “I think I know how we can make them like us enough to hand over the kid.” He grimaced. “Oh, shit, that came out wrong. Did I sound like a kidnapper just then?” 

Dinah smiled at him. “Kind of,” she said. “Good thing you’re among friends. So talk. How are you planning on becoming a daddy?” 

“ _Dinah_ ,” Bill said, and she looked down at the rebuke. “That’s not appropriate. My cousins are dead, all right? No bloody jokes.” 

He was right. Her family wasn’t the only one that had suffered loss, or near-loss, lately. “Sorry, Bill.” He nodded – no hard feelings, then. Good. “Theo, what’s your plan?” 

With a grunt and both hands on the couch, Theo levered himself up into a sitting position. “We tell them the truth,” he said. “We’re planning on getting married, okay, so we tell them that. A stable family unit’s a lot more of a draw than two gaymos rattling around in the same house.” 

Bill’s face went from excitement to disgust in under a second. Impressive. “You don’t mince words, do you?” he said. “There’s no need to be crude, or to use slurs.” 

“I figure out a way to expand our family and this is how you repay me?” Theo shook his head with a disapproving noise. “We’re officially fiancés now, so Dee’s about to be your sister-in-law. _Stable_ widowed aunt with two sons. Strike one against Lobotomelia. Strike two, we have about a million friends who can help out. Strike three, we _also_ have extended family who can provide a nice well-rounded worldview for Freddy.” 

“What extended family, exactly?” Bill asked. 

“Dane,” Theo answered, “who conveniently has already raised a kid and can help us out. See, Bill? We have everything a kid could need, and we don’t live in Michel Delving, so they have no argument.” 

Bill raised his eyebrows. “Three strikes, that’s… _oh_.” His eyes widened. 

“What?” said Dinah. “Do you have an idea?” 

“You forgot strike four,” Bill said faintly, staring off into space. “It’s what got you this house.” 

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Dinah asked. 

Theo rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “ _Kesef_ , Dee. Sweet, sweet _kesef_. Lobotomelia and Oll-terkocker could probably fit their whole house in my hypothetical bank vault. Freddy would never want for anything, except his parents.” He shot Bill a guilty look. “Sorry for being flippant.” 

Bill shrugged and shook his head. Dinah took that to mean he wasn’t mad. “With your income, it’s more like _zahav_ , Theodor,” she said. “Darrens is the fountain of money that keeps on giving. Perfect for a kid.” 

“You never mentioned she knew about Darrens,” Bill said. 

“Really?” Theo looked surprised. “I guess I never thought it was necessary. Dee proofreads most of the sex scenes I write that have women in them.” 

Dinah blew him a raspberry. “Damn straight. I’m never gonna forgive you for that one you published without my say-so. No woman thinks about her fucking boobs swaying that much. Who are you, George R. R. Martin?” 

“Fuck off,” said Theo with a cheesy grin, and showed her both of his middle fingers. “I didn’t see you complaining when I paid Phil’s hospital bill after he threw himself off my roof.” 

“Sway-boobs saved me from bankruptcy?” She crossed her arms over her own breasts, which did not sway during sex, thank you _very_ much. “Is that the way you’re playing this? I’m not a Lannister and I don’t repay debts to the likes of you. Anyway, that’s not a fucking debt, or were you lying about family not having to repay?” 

Bill held up both of his hands and looked at first Theo, then Dinah with a warning gaze from under his scrunched eyebrows. “Enough of that already,” he said. “Do you two want to go start up a Skype call with Ads about this? He told me to talk to him anyway when the boys mentioned Nazi Grandma. Wanted to make sure I was safe and all that.” 

“Gimme a few minutes,” Theo said. “Maybe more than a few minutes. My head hurts like hell.” 

“I’ll get you paracetamol.” Bill stood up. “And tea. You need a good cup of tea.” 

“Is that his answer to everything?” Dinah asked her brother. “Tea? How very fucking British.” 

Bill stared at her. “It is _not_ my answer to everything,” he said, his tone that of a man who had been deeply wronged. “Sometimes, my answer is crepes with lemon and powdered sugar, which Theo may have if he wants.” 

“Crepes for dinner sounds good,” Theo said. “The boys’ll tell us when they’re hungry, I bet. Then we can eat together. Do we still have any of that cherry jelly?” 

“One last jar,” Bill replied. “I suppose this is an occasion that calls for it.” He clapped his hands together as if dusting imaginary flour off. “All right, then. I’ll make tea and then we’ll go have a chat with Ads.” 

“And then we’ll go tell the boys that they’re going to have a new cousin soon,” said Theo, closing a fist over his heart. “Provided Bill’s family can be talked around and God’s willing to get off His ass for us.” 

Dinah echoed “May God get off His ass,” ignoring Bill’s murmur of disapproval, and she put her whole heart into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary  
>  _Kesef_ : money, lit. "silver" (Hebrew)  
>  _Zahav_ : gold (Hebrew) 
> 
> The thing about George R. R. Martin and his tendency to have women be OOC by focusing on their own breasts is from either a book or a piece of literary criticism that I read (he talked about Daenerys Targaryen's thoughts about her breasts moving under a "painted sandsilk vest"), but I can't remember what it was. The line Dinah references from A Song of Ice and Fire is "A Lannister always pays his debts." 
> 
> The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a book by Michael Chabon, an alternate universe in which a colony for Jewish people was established in Alaska. One of my younger brothers and my mother have read it and enjoyed it very much, from what I recall. 
> 
> The BDM was the women's section of the Hitler Youth, and of Nazi viewpoints for women in general. Young German women were strongly encouraged, if not outright ordered, to marry young and produce lots of Aryan babies. Objecting to this, or publicly allying oneself with early feminist thought at all, could and did get women sent to concentration camps under the black triangle, along with lesbians (thank you, Wikdsushi, for researching the black triangle issues and providing me with the info!). 
> 
> Lastly, sorry about this chapter being relatively short. The next one will be longer, I'm fairly sure. 
> 
> As always, I'm at godihatethisfreakingcat . tumblr . com.


	18. That Thou Wert As My Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dane Derensky makes his first trip to Boston in years; he finds the trip very much worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for kid vomit. Sorry; it happens.

His son really was weirdly tall. When he was five, Thayer had outgrown clothes meant for seven-year-olds at a scary fast rate, and Liz had freaked – wanted to test him for Marfan syndrome because one of her uncles had been diagnosed with it when he hit forty and died not long after. Dane hadn’t complained. His family, close and distant both, had enough health problems that he wasn’t in any mood to dispute genetic testing. 

It wasn’t really relevant anymore, since Thayer was ten and had stopped growing quite so fast. Nina, who was seven, didn’t have any interest in pajama pants with little baseballs printed on them, but there was no telling what Freddy would like. Dane folded the pajama pants and gave them a fond look (they’d seen Thay through strep throat and two ear infections, during one of which a nurse had cooed at the little baseball star when they went to the hospital), then tucked them away in the pajama drawer of Freddy’s new bureau. This kid probably wouldn’t be quite so tall, but he’d have time to grow. 

“Hey, Dane,” came his cousin’s voice. “Are you busy?” 

Dane paused with another pile of pajamas under his arm and waved at Dinah, standing in the doorway to Freddy’s room, with his free hand. “Kind of,” he said. “Still got a bunch of pants and shirts to go.” He and Liz had been happy enough to empty the attic of the kids’ clothes cluttering it up and gathering dust. Even some of Nina’s stuff from her all yellow, all the time phase had found its way into the clothing boxes in Dane’s car trunk. 

Dinah came in and sat on the bed, pulling half of her wild ponytail in each hand to tighten it. Since he started Skyping with Theo on a regular basis, Dane had seen him do the same thing a million times, so like brother, like sister, he guessed. “It was really nice of you to do this,” she said, and patted the two boxes still sitting on the bright red comforter. “I mean the clothes and coming up here and everything. I could’ve set up the bed, you know.” 

“Nah, it was no problem,” he said. Just another of Thay’s expressions that he’d picked up instead of ‘you’re welcome.’ It drove his mother nuts, but if a little subjective rudeness was the worst behavior she got out of her grandson, then she was getting a bargain, in Dane’s opinion. Dad just shrugged it off as an American thing when Mom started grumbling about millennials. “What do I have these big, strong arms for, anyway?” He playfully flexed a bicep at her. “Helping my cousins, that’s what. Anything else I need to do?” 

“Nope.” Dinah shook her head and gestured around the room with both hands. Dane smiled; Grandpa had done that as long as Dane knew him. “Let’s see. You brought a bunch of clothes, enough stickers to sink a ship, and a _bed_. You drove up to house-sit. Theo’s already gonna be in debt to you forever.” She put her hands on her hips with a smile. “No, I just came up to tell you that I got a text from Theo. They got through Customs a while back and they’re waiting to get their baggage.” 

Dane’s stomach leaped, but unlike when he’d first heard about the accident that sparked him and Theo reconnecting, it was with butterflies this time. Theo and Bill had been too busy with international paperwork and social workers coming to visit and the required parenting classes to do more than send him links to some pictures of Freddy. “How’s my newest cousin doing?” he asked. There were so few kids in the family, just his two little firecrackers and Dinah’s boys. It had been so long since he’d held a child and welcomed them home. 

“They didn’t say.” Dinah laid her hand on the space next to her. “Come on, sit down. Theo and Bill are capable of putting the rest of that stuff away.” She pressed a finger against her chin and looked up. “Well, maybe not. Theo’s lazy. Whatever, someone will do it.” 

“He’s not lazy,” Dane said, although he was pretty sure Dinah didn’t mean it. She and Theo talked about each other with identical rueful expressions and mock disapproval, just like Dane’s own kids did. In fact, the last he’d seen of the two of them as he was backing out of the driveway, Nina was trying to put Thayer in a headlock in the front yard and Thayer was letting her. “Hey,” Dane had shouted, rolling down the window, “popping your brother’s shoulder back in wasn’t cheap the last time.” 

“She’s being careful,” Thayer called back, and since he trusted his kids, Dane gave them the okay sign and left. Between their mother’s and their own, they were in good hands. Jesus, he wished he got along with his sister as well as Nina and Thayer did, but that bridge had been burned years ago and at this point, he didn’t want to try to fix it. 

Dinah’s smile grew wider. “You and Theo,” she said. “You take yourselves so seriously. I know he’s not lazy. Do you know how many times he’s gone to England since _March_ to dot I’s and cross T’s?” 

“Three,” said Dane, “not counting this trip.” Theo made sure to Skype him from the B&B on every trip to update him on how the adoption and immigration processes were coming along. Nice guy, his cousin, sailor mouth notwithstanding (and even that was a nice indication that Dane could let his own wild hair down). “I know he’s been conscientious.” 

“Newscaster words again,” said Dinah with a raised eyebrow. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know they’ll be here… _relatively_ soon, I think. Maybe forty-five minutes. I’m going downstairs if you want to come.” 

No matter what she said about it, Dane was determined to put the clothes away and leave a clean bed for Freddy. He deserved one on his first night here. “Give me two minutes?” 

She nodded. “Then I’ll wait in the hall. It’s nice to spend time with you.” 

Dane watched her walk out, then set to taking things out of the box and putting them in various drawers. Shirts, pants, and pajamas all went in their own drawers, and a couple of stuffed animals that Thayer had reluctantly parted with went onto the bed, propped against the pillow. Freddy would have quite a welcome when he saw this room for the first time, and Dane was just glad that he could be here to see it. 

He’d made plenty of mistakes in his life. Straightening his hair and calling himself Dane _Dennison_ for the purpose of moving up the ranks of local news was one of them, though meeting and marrying Liz as a result of the connections he’d made was absolutely _not_ another. And no matter what Theo had said, to the point of repeatedly offering to call his old boss to try to get Dane’s job back, going out with a bang for the sake of his family wasn’t one, either. The fact that he was free of that restrictive schedule was the reason he could be here today to meet the newest family member, and he couldn’t think of anything more rewarding than that. 

“That’s the last of it,” he said to the empty room. 

“Yeah? Good,” Dinah said from the hall. “I’m still here.” 

Well, the room was empty, but he definitely wasn’t alone. Dane picked up a box with each hand and went to meet Dinah. “Theo’ll be really happy with all that,” she said. “You’ve supplied Freddy for years.” 

“Just a few,” Dane said, shrugging. Too much credit made his stomach squirm. “He’ll grow out of this stuff pretty fast. Theo and Bill need to get him his own socks and underwear, too – I’m not touching Thay’s.” 

“Hold on a second,” Dinah said as he opened his mouth to tell her that they needed to watch out for mud stains, too, cupping a hand around her left ear. “Sorry, I thought I heard the boys yelling about something,” she continued after a few moments, shaking her head. 

Dane tilted his head. Nope, nothing but the creaking sounds of the house settling. “Can’t hear anything. Are you worried about Dwight and Noah getting them riled up?” Those two had come over about an hour ago, at which point Dinah had sent them outside to play with Phil and Caleb in the backyard. They’d protested, but Dane backed her up – when Freddy came home, overexcited friends and relatives high on adrenaline would not be a good idea. 

“Uh-uh.” Dinah went on ahead of him and he followed her down the stairs. “Dwight and Noah know how to handle those two. Almost makes me want to trust Noah with a baby. I just got parent-oversensitive, I guess.” 

Dane nodded and ran a hand over his growing goatee. “Don’t I know it,” he said. “Hey, they haven’t seen you-know-what, have they?” 

“You-know-what?” Dinah looked at him, brow crinkled, and then her face cleared. “Oh, _that_. You still set on giving him to them?” 

Where else was the little guy going to live, apart from a shelter or Dane taking his chances with a buyer who could potentially only be in it for the teacup-pig factor? Liz was more than happy to see him go. She loved his side hobby, mostly because baby animals of any species were cute as hell, but she was done with helping Dane pull all the adults away from the runt. “Yeah,” he said. “Bill and Theo already got that cat for Freddy. Actually, you mind if I go to the laundry room and check?” 

“I’ll go with you,” she said, and directed him through the foyer, past the kitchen, and across a little hallway from the downstairs bathroom to a latched door that she opened for him. “Let’s just hope he hasn’t pooped everywhere.” 

He hadn’t. Curled up on a blanket on the floor right where Dane had left him was a black-and-white-spotted piglet, his soft pink belly showing. Dane had supplied him with a couple of toys, a litter box, some water, and enough pig chow to sate his hunger but not enough for him to stuff himself. “Hey, little guy.” He squatted down next to the piglet, who opened his big eyes and looked at him, earning himself a scratch behind the ears. “How’s it going in here? Nice and calm? Good pig.” 

“That is going to be the world’s most _spoiled_ pig,” Dinah commented. Dane craned his neck around and smirked at her. “Don’t even try to deny it. Noah’s nuts for pets and I don’t think Dwight can ever tell him no about an animal. He volunteers at the shelter a lot.” 

“Yeah,” he said, “I know. Theo said Noah’s good at socialization.” That was the only reason he’d even considered giving the piglet to a couple with a dog instead of Theo and Bill’s more feline household. Dogs could mean death for pigs, but according to Theo, Chazzer was so docile that she didn’t do more than sniff Rug before plopping down submissively on her belly when she came over. His cousin had assured him that Chazzer would probably self-destruct before she hurt another animal, which was a good sign. Dane was still going to brief Dwight and Noah extensively on how to take care of the pig if it turned out that they wanted him. 

Dinah came in and held out her hand for the piglet to sniff. He grunted curiously and his nostrils flared as he scrabbled up from the linoleum floor to greet her. “He _is_ a sweet little thing,” she said. “Noah’s gonna love him. He seems like a pig person to me, you know?” 

“Why, because he’s married to a cop?” Dane quipped. 

“No. Oh, _God_.” She smacked her palm with her forehead and shook her head. “I’m an idiot! I should’ve seen I was walking right into that one. No, it’s not because Noah’s married to a pig. It’s because he has a marshmallow heart inside that nineties grunge shell.” 

Dane got up from the floor, accompanied by a flare of protesting pain from the knee that had never quite healed right after his college Frisbee injury in 1996. “I’d believe it,” he said. “Should we go wait in the living room or something?” 

“Yeah, probably,” Dinah said. “Wait, first I need to show you the kitchen. Theo and I stocked it with everything British last week. Freddy should be happy.” She waited for him to come out the door behind her and then latched it again, then stopped in her tracks. “Okay, this time I know I heard something.” 

Dane heard it, too, and he could see the source. “There.” He pointed at the half-open door they’d nearly walked past, behind which Theo and Bill’s two cats – one a long-term resident, the other new - were stalking around each other, tails up. As he watched, the fat gray one opened its mouth and hissed again. “Should we intervene?” 

“Damn, I think we have to.” Dinah pointed at the cats. “So here’s a challenge. Are you brave enough to go in there and separate them?” She crossed her arms and grinned. “Abandon hope, all ye who have suffered multiple scratches here.” 

“I’ve handled pigs in heat,” Dane said. “I can handle some cats.” But he was still careful to keep out of the way of the claws as he stepped into the room, which was probably Theo’s study just by the sheer number of leather-bound books on shelves, and scooped up the new cat. Carpet, he was called. Theo said it was because of the swirly brown tabby pattern of his fur, but Dane thought it was more likely that Theo was trying to be funny. Rug and Carpet, what a joke. “Good boy.” 

Carpet chirruped and curled up in Dane’s arms. “At least someone’s being friendly in this house,” Dinah said, patting the cat’s head. “Okay, British food. Right.” They walked the rest of the way to the kitchen and she flipped the lights on, then opened the doors to one of the tall built-in cabinets. “Check all this stuff out. Theo even got Ribena. You know how much shit he had to order off Amazon?” 

“I’m guessing a lot,” Dane said. The cabinet was so full of food that some of the boxes were stacked sideways on top of each other. He didn’t think that even an army of British kids would be able to eat all of it in under a year. “How’d you find all of it?” He tried to put Carpet down, but Carpet climbed up his chest and settled around his neck like a big, lean neck pillow. 

Dinah snorted. “Got some animal control problems over there, Dane?” 

“No. I’m keeping him.” Dane scratched Carpet under the chin. “He’s a good boy. And I never have animal control problems.” His father-in-law, before he croaked, hadn’t called him the Animal Whisperer for nothing. He hadn’t meant it in a complimentary way, but he’d still said it and Dane was going to stand by that. 

“If you say so.” She shrugged. “Don’t come crying to me if he claws your shirt up.” 

As if he’d ever come crying to anyone over a good kitty. “You have no idea how many of these guys I’ve calmed down,” he said as Carpet purred in his ear. “Anyway, what the hell is orange squash?” Along with the bottles of that Ribena stuff, those containers took up almost a whole shelf. 

She glanced where he was pointing. “Some kind of drink,” she said. “Don’t ask me. Boaz and Benny brought it over. Boaz said they needed to bring some snacks from Ireland, too, so Freddy doesn’t grow up to be a complete Limey bastard.” She grimaced. “His words, not mine. At least the snacks are homemade.” 

“And rugelach,” Dane said, smiling. 

“Yeah. Benny made those. He said they were made by someone from Ireland, so they still counted as snacks from the British Isles.” She shut the cabinet door and looked at the digital display on the microwave. “Still might be a while before they’re here. Do you want something to eat?” 

Dane pressed two fingers into his upper stomach between the halves of his rib cage (or his esophagus, he was never quite sure), and it growled. “Yeah, I could go for something,” he said. “What do you have?” 

“Check the fridge,” she said, just as the back door audibly banged open and a voice so deep and loud that it could only be Theo’s friend Dwight’s shouted something about foul play. “What’s ours is yours,” she said with a sigh. “Hold on, I need to go corral these _nudniks_.” 

But she didn’t need to. All four of them stomped and chattered their way into the kitchen at once, Phil and Dwight with mud on their T-shirts and all over their pants, army-style cargo pants for Dwight and long khaki shorts for Phil. Taking advantage of the last of the summer warmth to roll around like happy pigs, Dane guessed, or maybe they had been pushed. “Mom, I’m hungry!” Caleb said. 

“Too bad.” Dinah wrinkled her face up. “You all smell like death. Go upstairs and take showers.” 

“We’ll miss it when they get here if we shower now,” Dwight objected. “Can’t it wait fifteen minutes?” For a huge bald guy, he sure could whine worse than Nina. He did have better reasons, though, Dane had to give him that. “And nice scarf, Dane.” 

Dane struck a pose with Carpet. “Thanks for noticing.” 

Dinah shook her head. “No, it can’t wait. Upstairs. Phil, Caleb, you two use your uncle’s shower. Dwight, Noah, guest bathroom, and you better just be showering in there. Now get up there. The faster you get it done, the sooner you can come back down.” 

Phil grumbled under his breath, but the rest of them seemed to agree with that logic. After they’d headed upstairs with all the light-footedness of a bunch of rutting boars, Dane headed towards the fridge and started rooting around for something to fill his stomach. “Oh, _yeah_ , leftover Mexican!” he exclaimed when he found something suitable. That would do. 

He took the Saran Wrap-covered plate of enchiladas out of the fridge and stuck it in the microwave for a minute on high. Carpet sprang off his shoulders with a meow as he lifted his arms. “Want to share?” he asked. “There’s too much for me.” He and Dinah had gone out for dinner last night with her sons and boyfriend, and after putting furniture together all day, Dane had been hungry enough to get two orders of chicken enchiladas. His eyes had nonetheless proven bigger than his stomach. 

“Sure,” she said. “Let me get forks and stuff.” She crossed to the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen and pulled out two forks and another plate, then retrieved the enchiladas when the microwave beeped. “I’ll take half, okay?” 

“No problem,” Dane said. His phone buzzed – incoming text – and he pulled it out of his pocket. Not surprisingly, the text was from Liz. _How’s it going over there?_

He typed a reply: _I get to meet the kid in a half hour-ish, you OK with Thayer + Nina?_

Dinah set the plates of warmed-up enchiladas, which smelled amazing, down on the table and took the chair next to him. “Who’s that?” she asked through a mouthful. 

“Liz,” Dane told her. “She’s just checking in.” He dug into his pile of sauce-covered food, which weirdly enough, tasted better than it had the night before. He wouldn’t have thought that was possible. “I asked her how Thayer and Nina are doing.” Repeating Phil and Caleb’s names had helped him memorize theirs more quickly, so he’d do the same for Dinah. 

“I bet they’re just fine,” Dinah said, and smiled. “And don’t listen to Boaz, by the way. I’m sure you didn’t copy off my name and Theo’s name when you named your kids.” 

Boaz _had_ been a little annoying with the soundalike comparisons, but Dane had thrown a tortilla chip at him, he’d eaten it with salsa, and all had been well. “It’s not a big deal.” Dane forked another bite. “No, Thay was named after my father-in-law. He died while Liz was pregnant.” 

“Sorry to hear that.” Dinah wiped her mouth, which was stained with mole sauce. “Were you close to him?” 

“God, no,” Dane said. “He was a horrible person. So’s my mother-in-law. I didn’t think it was polite to bring it up in front of your boys, but I’ll admit we named Thay like we did for the inheritance money, you know, buttering her mom up a little.” 

Dinah choked on her food and spent some time coughing it back out. “You’re kidding.” 

“Nope. Liz said we deserved it and I kind of went along with her.” He looked down at his buzzing phone. “Okay, good, the kids are fine.” _See you in a few days_ , he typed as quickly as he could, and put the phone away. Texting at the table was just rude. 

“So where’d Nina’s name come from?” she asked when he was done. 

Dane ate another bite of delicious shredded chicken. “Liz was a big _Just Shoot Me!_ fan and I liked the way it sounded. Not sure, maybe I was subconsciously thinking of you.” He put the fork back in his mouth to lick off the sauce. “You’re not scared, are you?” 

“No, it’s just a superstition. Besides, you didn’t do it on purpose.” Dinah watched him for a second, then pressed her fork against some of the sauce on her almost-empty plate and licked it off, too. “You should tell Theo that. He’ll get a laugh out of it.” 

“I already did,” Dane said. “Last month. We were Skyping and he decided to start teasing me.” _That_ was a particular quality that he could only guess he’d blocked out of his mind for self-preservation reasons. It was less of an eye-roller coming from family, but teasing was still teasing. “That was when he was in England the third time. How much paperwork did he have to _do_ , Dinah?” 

“A lot,” she said, “and you can call me Dee. Seriously, everyone does.” She finished off her snack and scavenged more sauce off the plate. “That and planning what’s basically a shotgun wedding. Danny went nuts because Bill and Theo are bringing the rabbi over to Hillel to get married instead of letting him plan it out.” 

Dane closed his eyes and tried to focus through the haze of names he’d become passingly familiar with since March. “Remind me who Danny is again. The cop?” 

“No, the lawyer. He’s – I’d say fussy, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Dinah stood up, plate in hand. “You want me to get yours?” 

“No, I’m not finished yet.” He watched her take her own plate to the dishwasher. “What’d they say when he went nuts?” 

“Mostly that they were more interested in being married than getting married,” she said, shutting the dishwasher. “Bill said he wanted to be with Theo for the rest of his life, but he didn’t want to get dressed up in tails. Danny wouldn’t talk to him the rest of the night.” 

Dane looked down at the one remaining enchilada on his plate and opened his mouth to ask if it was possible for someone to _really_ be that fussy, but the slam of the front door interrupted his thoughts. “Hey, we’re home!” Theo shouted. “Freddy’s here!” 

Dinah let out an irritated growl. “Don’t yell!” she yelled back, which Dane thought was pretty hypocritical. “You’ll scare him!” 

Theo laughed. “Knock it off, Dee, he’s already awake.” A few seconds later, he appeared in the kitchen with a curly-haired boy resting on his hip, arms around his neck. Bill trailed behind him with a duffel bag in hand. 

Freddy opened his eyes and looked around, and honest to God, Dane had never seen a cuter kid apart from his own. “Wow,” he said. “Theo, is that Freddy, or did you breed and not tell anyone about it?” Apart from being significantly paler than Theo, Freddy could easily have been his son. His big blue eyes were as bright as Theo’s and his hair was as dark, and just like his new dad (or whatever he was going to call him), his mouth was set in a pout. 

“No, it’s Freddy, you…you jerk,” Theo said with a laugh. He wasn’t swearing? That was a new one on him. Must have been he was nesting, or that Bill had told him he’d leave him if he didn’t clean up his language. 

Dinah came and stood next to her brother, gazing at Freddy like she wanted to pick him up and hug him forever. “Oh my God, he’s adorable,” she said softly. “Dane’s right. He really does look like you, Theo.” 

Freddy, who didn’t seem to care that everyone was talking about him, disengaged his arms from around Theo’s neck and put a thumb in his mouth. It quickly came out, though, as his eyes lit on Dane’s plate and he broke into a grin. “Food!” he cried, and pointed. “I want dinner, Uncle!” 

So did Dane, but this was a five-year-old in need. Damn his dad instincts. He looked down at his lone enchilada and sighed. “You want my food, Freddy? You can have it.” After slicing the enchilada into a few pieces, he stood and handed the plate to Bill. “It’s a sacrifice,” he said, “but I think I’ll live.” 

Theo bounced Freddy a few times in his arms. “This is your Cousin Dane, Freddo,” he said. “Isn’t he generous? What do we say when someone gives us something?” 

Freddy turned his face up, expression entirely innocent. “’s’at all?” 

“Oh, bugger _me_ ,” Bill groaned, and facepalmed while both Theo and Dinah broke into laughter. Dane joined them in a belly laugh that had him clutching his abdomen – that had to be a Theo-ism. He _knew_ his cousin hadn’t devolved into mushy parental manners lessons. “Why’d you have to tell him that, Theo? Now he’ll never give it up!” 

“It was a joke!” Theo said. “Wasn’t it, Freddo?” He tickled Freddy with one hand and elicited a giggle. “There we go.” 

Freddy reached over to Bill and shoved a chunk of enchilada into his mouth, smearing mole sauce all over his face. “It’s burny in my mouth!” he announced, and then added with a messy-mouthed grin, “I like it!” 

“He’s got a taste for Mexican food,” Bill said with a sigh. “Well, as long as it doesn’t make him gaseous, I suppose that’ll make fast-food night more –“ 

“Freddy! It’s Freddy!” Phil and Caleb raced into the kitchen and, a few steps behind them, so did Noah, dressed only in a T-shirt and boxers. “Holy moley, he’s here!” Caleb said as all three of them gathered around. Freddy’s eyes widened and his sauce-covered hand stopped in its quest for more food. 

Noah ruffled Freddy’s hair. “Holy shit, are you sure he isn’t yours, Theo?” 

Freddy belched, and the kitchen rang with laughter again. Noah shook his head, making his hair (which Dane now noticed was dripping all over the floor – did he just jump out of the shower or what?) fly everywhere. “Yeah, he’s yours!” he crowed. “Theo actually bred!” 

As Noah leaned in, face just inches away from Freddy’s, Freddy shrank back. His lower lip trembled and he curled back up against Theo’s shoulder. “Who’s that?” he said shakily. “It’s lots of people, Uncle Slomo. I don’t want ‘em!” 

“Uncle _Slomo_?” Phil guffawed, and patted Freddy’s shoulder. “Hey, Uncle Theo, Geula calls you Doodoo. Are you constipated or what?” 

“Yeah, totally!” Caleb echoed the laugh as he put his arms around Theo’s chest, engulfing Freddy. “Freddy, how come you call him Uncle Slomo? You burp like him. Did he do it to one of Bill’s cousins and - ” 

“Don’t _want_ the people!” Freddy shrieked. He hid his face in Theo’s shoulder, shaking. “Too much! It hurts!” 

Theo cuddled him close and glared at Noah, his nephews, and Dane for some reason in quick succession. Who the hell was he to blame the guy who’d given Freddy dinner at great personal cost? Dane was going to have to yell at him later. “Didn’t you bastards hear him? He wants you to screw off, so screw off.” 

“Yes, get back, all of you!” Bill scolded. “Now,” he said to Freddy, his voice turning soft and parental, “isn’t that better? They’ve gone farther away. Do you think you can hear some names now?” He one-handedly took Freddy from Theo’s arms and handed Theo the plate. 

Freddy clung to him, but he seemed less agitated. “Yes,” he said. He took another piece of enchilada and slowly ate it. “Who’s the people?” 

“This is your Cousin Dane, like I told you,” Theo said. “And that’s Aunt Dee, and her sons, Cousin Phil and Cousin Caleb. That’s Noah.” 

“Is he an uncle, too?” Freddy asked. “I got lots of uncles and cousins.” 

“Nah, I’m just a friend,” said Noah, smirking. “I don’t get a fancy title like everyone else. Guess I know my place, huh, Theo?” 

Theo made an angry noise, but the explanation satisfied Freddy. “Uncles have friends, too,” he said, and licked sauce off his fingers. There was still some smeared on his mouth, chin, and sweater, and it made Dane smile. That would go from adorable to bad manners as soon as Freddy stopped being a novelty, and he hoped Bill and Theo appreciated those weeks while they lasted. 

Caleb went to pick up a piece of enchilada then, maybe thinking that no one would care, and Theo whacked his hand lightly. “Stop it,” he said. “Your cousin’s been on a plane all day and you can have food anytime.” 

“I want some now!” Caleb put his hands on his hips. “I’m hungry, Uncle Theo.” 

“Me too,” Phil chimed in. 

“Yeah, me too,” said Noah. “Dwight’ll be hungry when he gets out of the shower. Can we get pizza or something?” 

Freddy’s face went distraught again. “It’s my dinner,” he said. “You can’t have it. It’s mine!” He made a grab for the plate, and would have spilled the contents if it weren’t for Theo’s firm hold. 

Phil blinked. “Whoa, rude,” he said. 

“Shut up, he’s five,” Theo shot back. “And I don’t see you getting on your brother’s case for trying to take a kindergartener’s food. That’s almost as bad as taking candy from a baby.” He looked at Bill and Freddy, shaking his head. “Bill, it might be a good idea to get him out of here for a while. I think he’s over-socialized.” 

“Quite a good idea,” said Bill. “Freddy, would you like a treat? How about we let you finish your dinner in the tub and then you can have a bath, hm? Have you ever gotten to eat in the bathtub?” 

Freddy’s eyes went wide. “No, I never did that! I want to!” 

“Then off we go.” Bill hefted Freddy into one arm and took the plate from Theo with the other. “I may want to put him to bed after,” he said to Theo. “He’s all done in, I think.” 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Yeah, you are, kiddo,” Theo said. He touched Freddy’s cheek with a finger. “I’ll be up to see how you’re doing soon. Have a fun bath.” Glancing back at his nephews like he’d just remembered they existed, he nodded at Dinah. “Hey, you can order pizza if you want. Get whatever - just tell me how much and I’ll pay you back later. Bill has my wallet in his carry-on, I think.” 

“Oh, get me a vegetable pizza,” Bill said, and left the room when Dinah nodded. 

Theo stared after him. “Vegetable pizza,” he said. “Why’d I agree to marry him?” 

“Probably a lot of reasons,” Dane said, not wanting to state the obvious in front of Phil and Caleb. They were still young enough for that to be a criminal offense. “So what about this pizza we keep talking about? Dinah, can we get it from a different place than we had the night before last?” 

Dwight’s shout from the front hall cut off Dinah’s answer. “Dammit, I _missed_ it!” he exclaimed. “God! I knew I should’ve showered with Noah. Is this Freddy?” 

“It’s Freddy,” Bill confirmed. He sounded like he was about to burst out laughing. “Freddy, this is Noah’s husband, Dwight. Can you say hello to Dwight?” 

Instead of saying hello, Freddy screamed, and Dane could only imagine what Bill and Dwight’s faces looked like. “It’s a Frankiemonster, Uncle!” he cried. “Get it away!” Then he broke into sobs. 

“Sorry, Dwight,” Bill said. 

“What?” 

“ _Sorry!_ ” Bill raised his voice. “All right, I’ve got to take him upstairs. There we are, Freddy, that’s enough Dwight for one day. You’ll be all right, come on.” 

The crying faded away as Bill presumably went upstairs with Freddy, and Dwight came into the kitchen. He looked absolutely crestfallen. “Did that kid just call me Frankenstein’s monster?” he asked the kitchen inhabitants at large. “What’d I do?” 

Noah immediately came over and hugged him without saying a word, but Theo just shrugged. “The lights were off in there,” he said, “and you’re wearing black. Just sayin’, I probably would’ve made the same mistake if I didn’t know you.” 

Dinah slapped his shoulder. “Your self-preservation instinct sucks, Theo,” she said. “Phil, Caleb, come with me. We’re gonna go fight over pizza toppings in another room.” 

“And you two should come with me,” Dane said to Noah and Dwight, who were now locked in a tight hug with Dwight’s head on Noah’s shoulder. “I have a surprise for you.” He caught Theo’s eye, and Theo winked at him. 

Noah peeked out from the hug, eyes alight. His eyebrows were raised high enough to create wrinkles in his forehead. “Really? What kind of surprise?” 

“Follow me and you’ll find out,” said Dane. “Theo, you want to come with me and show them their surprise?” 

Theo put his hands up in front of him. “You don’t have to ask me twice,” he said. “Dwight, Noah, quit being emotional in my kitchen. Dwight, Freddy likes you fine, he’s just tired. Everyone, follow Dane.” 

Dane stuck out his tongue at Theo and then turned around before he could see if the gesture was returned, then led their party of four to the laundry room and undid the latch. “Your surprise is in here,” he said, and watched Noah and Dwight make confused faces at each other. Dwight in particular looked like an expert at what Liz called the Simple Dog headtilt. 

“You shut the surprise in the laundry room?” Theo asked. “ _Why?_ ” 

“Because the surprise scares easily, and your cat is a bastard,” Dane answered. “Before you ask, Rug, not Carpet. Carpet behaves just fine. I think he’ll be good for Freddy.” 

Noah bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, clasped his hands in front of him, and cut into the conversation by getting into Dane’s personal space. “You brought us something that scares easily?” he said. His hair smelled strongly of either gel or knockoff Old Spice and it wasn’t altogether pleasant. Dane got enough preteen grooming smells from his son. “Is it alive?” 

His enthusiasm was contagious. Dane smiled and opened the door. “You’ll see.” 

For a few moments, the piglet was nowhere to be found. “Where is it?” Theo said. “Don’t tell me you lost it.” 

Dane, momentarily stymied, cast around. His eyes lit on a messy pile of towels, almost the same color as the piglet – that would be why they had hidden it. “Come here,” he said in a hushed tone, and picked the piglet up from his makeshift bed. He stirred in Dane’s arms and squeaked softly, his nose twitching as he picked up the scent of new people. “Now, if you want…” 

Noah (yet again) didn’t let Dane finish his sentence. “Oh my God!” He rushed over to Dane and stared at the piglet. “Are you serious? It’s _mine?_ ” 

“Yours and Dwight’s,” Dane said, “if you want him. I brought some pig chow and toys and things like that, but I’ll want to let him get to know your dog over a few days. Dogs sometimes go after pigs.” 

“Oh my God,” Noah repeated. His hands hovered over the piglet, who returned his eye contact with a curious cock of his head. “Chazzer won’t do anything. She’s a marshmallow, I swear. Can I hold him? Please? _Please?_ ” 

“Sure.” Dane stooped to pick up one of the towels so he could wrap the piglet up. “Just let me get a wrap for him so he doesn’t get – oh, crap!” There was something to the old saying about a greased pig, but what they didn’t mention was that regular pigs could be damn slippery, too. The piglet popped out of his arms as soon as he got close enough to the ground and rooted in the pile of laundry, came up with his head caught in a dirty T-shirt that covered his entire little body, and ran like a bat out of hell. 

Theo swore, which told Dane before he even turned around that the pig had run by him. “Shit, Dane, get it!” 

Fuck his knee. Dane got up and ran out the door, yelling “I’m working on it!” over his shoulder. The clatter of the piglet’s hooves on the wooden floor told him where its approximate path was, but things were complicated by the fact that there were three sets of footsteps coming up behind him, too. 

Between Dwight’s curses in another language and Noah’s wild laughter, Dane couldn’t track where the pig was so well, but thankfully, it stopped in the front hallway with its hooves skittering on the polished floor. The poor little thing attempted to get up in a steady stance, slipped on a trailing edge of T-shirt, and flopped over sideways onto its flank. 

“Gotcha,” said Dane, panting. He really needed to get back into the gym, or maybe start chasing pigs more often. He came towards it with his arms outstretched, but the newly-free piglet was too fast for him, and this time it ran up the stairs as fast as its short legs could take it. “Oh, _mother_ …! I don’t gotcha!” 

“Well, fuck, go get it before it pisses on the carpet!” Theo exclaimed. 

Dane made a face at him. Easy for Theo to stand there giving orders when he hadn’t run fast enough to get a stitch in his side. “You go get it, pus bucket. And he doesn’t scare _that_ easily.” He raised pigs, not puppies. 

Before any of them could go get it – although Noah took a few steps toward the staircase in preparation – a yelp from upstairs to rival any surprised pig told Dane exactly where the newest member of Dwight and Noah’s family had gone. “ _Theo!_ ” Bill hollered a moment later. “Why is there a bloody fucking pig in my water closet? Freddy, don’t touch the…oh, for -” There was a muffled clatter, and after a piggy squeal and another “Bloody fuck!”, Bill came down the stairs with his arms full of a squirming, shirt-covered, porcine bundle. 

Theo bellowed a laugh, rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands, and affected an awed expression. “Thirty hours of labor and I have a son!” 

Bill ignored him and stomped over to Dane, then held out the piglet as he glared. “I believe this belongs to you.” He thrust out his chin. “Keep ahold of your pets! Now I’ve got to scald my hands before I feed Freddy again. God knows what diseases that thing is carrying.” 

“Hey.” Dane glared right back, while from behind him came an ‘I know you didn’t!’ noise from Noah. “Don’t insult my pigs, thank you very much.” 

“No one’s insulting your pigs.” Bill proffered the piglet again, and Dane took it. “I’m stating facts. Now take it. I’ve got to go finish giving Freddy his dinner and then bathe him, God knows why he feels the sauce is a fashion accessory. I’ll talk to you all later. Theo?” 

“Yeah?” Theo said. 

“Come up in about half an hour, will you? I’ll put Freddy to bed then.” 

Theo looked at the wall clock. “Bill, it’s barely five PM.” 

“Yes, and it’s nine in England, not to mention he’s been traveling. He’s exhausted.” Bill stood on his tiptoes and kissed Theo’s cheek. “Best to reset his circadian rhythms while he’s jet-lagged. I’ll see you in a bit?” 

Theo nodded. “Talk to you then, Bill. Hey!” He grinned suddenly. “You should give the pig a bath, too.” 

Bill looked murderous, but he only shook his head and stomped up the stairs in lieu of saying anything else. Maybe he was afraid he’d actually be tempted to kill Theo. If so, Dane saluted him for his self-control. 

“So can I hold my pig _now?_ ” Noah asked. 

Dane looked down at his bundle. The piglet had quieted down some – probably tired himself out running all over the house. He looked more curious than scared now. “Sure, just a second. Hold out your arms.” He still made sure to pat the piglet and make a few reassuring shush noises before he handed it over. 

Noah received it with utter reverence on his face. It would have been plain at fifty paces that he wanted to smoosh the piglet against his face and babble baby talk at it. “It’s a he, right?” he said. “You said ‘he.’” 

“Yeah, it’s a male pig,” Dane told him. “I mean, mostly. I took him to get neutered with his littermates a few weeks ago.” Being the runt, the piglet hadn’t been quite as big as his siblings and Dane might have waited if he hadn’t been so healthy and vigorous. He had to be, standing up to the other pigs trying to step on him and still getting in his share of food. “No marbles in the pouch.” 

Noah shook his head and began to rock the piglet back and forth as slowly and tenderly as if it were his newborn child. “You have a name,” he murmured, his nose almost against the pig’s snorting one. “You’re Kosher.” 

“ _Kosher?_ ” Dwight said incredulously. He tapped his knuckles against Noah’s head. “Are you cracked in the head or are you trying to be funny?” 

“Hey,” Noah said, “we already have Chazzer and Danny has Trayf. Don’t pretend it’s not fuckin’ hilarious.” 

“Uh-huh.” Dwight came closer and peered down at the pig. “Cute,” he said in a grudging tone. “Do I get any say at all? Looks like my husband’s about to leave me for this thing already.” 

Dane couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, and because of that, it was an alarm bell. “Noah,” he said, “I’m not giving Kosher to you unless the two of you are a hundred percent certain you want him. He’s had enough crap. I won’t give him to people who aren’t going to make sure he gets everything he needs, and that includes love.” He’d presided over the birthing, and in a way, he thought that made him the piglet’s surrogate father. That meant advocating for his piggy kid. 

“We want him.” Noah’s voice was the firmest that Dane had heard it yet. “Dwight’s just being a dick on purpose, aren’t you, Dwight?” Now he really did touch noses with Kosher (no matter what Dwight said, it _was_ a funny name), then kissed him right between his floppy little ears. “Who’s a smelly piggy?” he gushed. “Who’s my good Kosher stinkapop?” 

Dane sneaked a look at his cousin, whose mouth had fallen open and who now appeared to be torn between amused and disgusted. “I’m assuming he’s always like this, Theo,” he stage-whispered. Dwight snorted louder than the pig at that. 

“Mostly,” said Theo. “Just whenever he’s not mooning cops.” 

Dane shook his head. “What?” 

“Long story,” Dwight said. “I don’t know what he was doing to other cops before I came around, but he sure as hell mooned me, and now we’re married.” 

Regardless of whether it was inappropriate, Dane felt a laugh surfacing in his throat and he let it come out full-throttle. “That’s messed up,” he commented, once he’d caught his breath. This whole situation was ridiculous: first a high-speed pig chase and then _Kosher_ , of all the names. Why did it not surprise him at all that Noah was the kind of person who thought it was a good idea to show a police officer a full moon? “Please tell me you didn’t marry him _right_ after he showed you the old fat cheeks and vertical smile.” 

“No.” Theo’s mouth quivered and he pressed his lips together. By the redness of his face, he was pretty obviously one bad joke away from completely losing it. “He waited a month.” 

“Oh, hey, are you guys making butt jokes?” Caleb called, and came into the foyer shortly after. Theo and Dwight both looked like deer in the headlights, but Noah was just sniggering. “Mom told me to tell you we decided on pizza toppings. We’re getting a pepperoni and a TJ Special and a cheese, and a vegetable one for Bill. Do you want anything else?” 

Theo snapped himself out of the “oh shit” look and shook his head. “No, thanks, Caley,” he said. “Tell your mom to go ahead and make the order.” 

“What’s a TJ Special?” Dane asked. He’d partaken of a _hell_ of a lot of different kinds of pizza in his life, having been born in Chicago, and he’d never heard of that one. “Is it an East Coast thing?” The one time Theo’s father had tried deep-dish on a visit, he’d spit it right back out. There was a serious pizza-related cultural divide between the regions. 

“Uncle Theo invented it,” Caleb said. “It has a ton of meat on it, so he called it the Terrible Jew Special. When we get pizza, all the places know what it means. It’s really funny.” He looked from Dwight to Noah. “Oh, cool! Where’d the pig come from? And why’s it wearing Uncle Theo’s T-shirt?” 

Noah kissed Kosher on his back. Kosher kicked him in the chest and Noah grunted in a frankly awesome reversal of the usual pig dynamic before he answered. “This is Kosher,” he said. “He’s our child now. Say hello, Kosher.” He frowned, lifted Kosher up again, and sniffed the T-shirt. “God, Theo, you have some serious pit stink.” 

Theo set his teeth in his lower lip and made a fart noise. “Don’t blame me, you jackass. Blame my virile, hairy biology and deodorant that’s past the sell-by date.” 

“I didn’t know that stuff could go off,” Dwight commented. 

“Yeah, neither did I. Then Bill said I smelled like a moose.” Theo rolled his eyes. “I never should’ve said anything about doing a honeymoon in Yellowstone. He won’t stop with the travel brochures and the research and all that crap.” He glanced back at his nephew. “Caley, tell your mom that’s fine. Just make the pepperoni and the TJ special larges. We’ve got locusts over here, and I don’t mean Dwight.” 

Dwight elbowed Noah in the side with a smile. “I don’t know where he puts it, either,” he said. “Don’t ask me. Must be a weird, mutated hollow leg.” 

“A-yup,” Noah said, and shifted into a heroic stance, legs apart and shoulders squared. The pig in his arms sort of added to the effect, weirdly enough. “Just call me the Dinner Devourer. Superhero by night, animal lover by day.” 

“And that’s not a bestiality joke, so don’t ask,” Dwight said. Wordlessly, Caleb made a face of utter disgust. “Good man, Caleb. Go back to your mom, okay? I think all the logistics are sorted out now.” 

Caleb stretched his arms behind his back, then over his head. “Okay,” he said, and turned to leave. “I’ll go tell her what you said about the larges, Uncle Theo,” he added over his shoulder. “I think she wanted mediums.” 

“Thanks, kiddo,” Theo called after him. “So,” he said, turning back, “what do we do now?” 

“Maybe Dwight and Noah want to get to know Kosher,” Dane suggested. “Why don’t you two take him back to the laundry room and socialize a little? He can smell your dog on you, have a little food, be in a secure environment.” Kosher had been socialized in much the same way back home, as were all his pigs, but more of the same never hurt. “And his litter box is in there.” 

“Yeah,” said Dwight, “we definitely want the litter box.” 

“And you’ll want to get to know him, too.” Dane stepped closer to Dwight and put a hand on his shoulder. “Like I said, I mean it. He’s gonna be your pet, too. Learn about him. Get to know all the ins and outs of what makes him Kosher.” 

“Not a lot.” Dwight cracked a smile. “I think I’ll be making that pun for the rest of my life. No, seriously.” He looked back at Dane, his expression back to its usual stolidity. “I want him, Dane. He’s my pig and Noah’s – it’s a good idea.” He gave a single nod. “So, uh, how big is he gonna get? If he’s _just_ trained to go in the house…” 

Relief flooded through him. Words weren’t everything, but Dwight being willing to say that he wanted the pig went a long way. Sometimes, you didn’t even get that. “He’s the runt,” Dane said, “so I’m not really sure. These guys get to be a hundred, couple hundred pounds. His parents weren’t all that huge, either, so I’d say he’s probably at the lower end.” Wait, he’d asked about something else besides pig raising. He needed to learn how to put a lid on the technical stuff. “And he’s trained to go outside. I just didn’t want him running around the yard.” 

“Okay,” Dwight said. He looked relieved, too. Dane couldn’t blame him; cleaning up pig shit was no laughing matter. There was a reason it was the basis of at least one figure of speech. “Back to the laundry room, Noah?” 

“Yup.” Noah hoisted Kosher high. “You carry him?” 

Dwight took him a little hesitantly, and Kosher settled into his grasp right away. “He likes me better,” Dwight said, and although Noah pouted, he followed Dwight out anyway. The allure of a pig was strong enough to withstand any insult. 

“How about you and I have a drink?” Theo asked. “I know I’m sure as hell not driving anywhere tonight and Bill won’t be done with Freddy for a while.” 

That sounded amazing. Dane had heard enough about the alcohol pickings around here to suspect that Theo had a secret liquor cabinet somewhere, filled with the good stuff. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go find ourselves something boozy. What do you have?” 

“What I have is in my study,” Theo said, and began to walk back in that direction. “I don’t trust my nephews not to go poking around. I have a lot of whiskey in there, but there’s some fruity stuff, too. Midori. Bill makes a great Green Parrot.” 

“I like it, too,” Dane said. “Midori. What’s a Green Parrot?” 

Theo opened his study door and turned to gape at Dane. It was probably mostly fake. Probably. “You’ve never had a Green Parrot? Fuck, I need to ask Bill to make you one. It’s a kind of frozen daiquiri.” He smiled ruefully. “Fuck if guys aren’t supposed to drink it. It’s good.” 

“My grandpa called that the Derensky Sweet Tooth before he kicked it,” Dane offered, following Theo into the study. Theo switched on the lights. “Good to see it’s in the side branch, too.” 

Theo bent to unlock a cabinet under one of the high bookshelves, not far from his computer. “Who are you calling a side branch?” he said. “I’ll have you know we’re the main branch, Sidey. Self-respecting Derenskys don’t eat deep-dish.” 

Dane showed him both of his middle fingers, which didn’t really work as well as he thought it would with Theo still turned around and bent over. “Oh, eat me,” he said. A hiss came from the general area of the computer and Dane looked at the source – Rug. Of course. “See, your cat agrees with me.” 

“Thought you said the cat’s a bastard.” Theo pulled out a bright green glass bottle, shut and locked the cabinet, and stood back up. “Rug, are you turning into a traitor? Bad boy.” He shook his finger at Rug and Rug bared his teeth, but Theo didn’t seem to care. 

“He _is_ a bastard.” Dane dared a pat to Rug’s head. Rug looked up at him with deceptively round, innocent eyes, purred perfunctorily, and sank several claws into the back of Dane’s hand. “Ow! Knock it off, cat!” He yanked his hand away, examining the scratches on his hand. “Fuck.” His heart pounded with the sudden rush of adrenaline. “I’m bleeding. Okay, I didn’t expect that.” 

Theo set the bottle on the desk and snapped his fingers at Rug. “Hey!” he scolded. “You don’t scratch Cousin Dane, you hear me? Bad Rug!” Rug meowed back at him and Theo snapped his fingers closer to his nose. “Hey! Hey, no. Get outta here and go bother your other daddy.” 

Rug let out another hiss, flumped down off the chair, and ran out of the room. “You didn’t have to do that,” Dane said, although he was a little touched despite himself. From what he could tell, the ‘fat sack of crap’ meant everything to Theo and more. “He could’ve stayed.” 

“Stayed. Yeah, overstayed his welcome.” Theo picked the bottle of Midori back up. “What kind of mixers do you want in this? We have seltzer in the fridge and Bill got some of that fall sparkling cider at the grocery store the other day.” 

“Seltzer’s good,” Dane said as they went back to the kitchen. “Apple and melon sounds kind of horrifying.” Not to mention that he didn’t want to have to deal with that taste while eating pizza. 

Theo immediately took a bottle of seltzer out of the refrigerator and pulled down two wineglasses. “Seltzer it is,” he said, poured, and mixed. “There we go.” He slid one of the glasses over to Dane and took a gulp from his own. 

Dane took a drink and set the glass down, then leaned against the kitchen counter along with Theo. “You doing okay?” he asked. “I know being a dad is kind of overwhelming, but I hope this isn’t a ‘drown your sorrows’ kind of drink.” 

Theo took another drink. “It’s not,” he said, “I promise. It’s just been a long day. And if there’s pizza, I want to be really hungry for it. Booze gets me hungry.” He sighed. “But about being a dad…thank you so much for your help, and for staying over. And all the kid stuff. Anything I can do to repay you, just ask.” 

“No way,” Dane said, and put his arm around Theo’s shoulders, patting comfortingly. “This isn’t a debt. We’re cousins. That’s what family does for each other.” The longer he stayed in Theo’s house, the more he regretted all the years they’d spent with little to no contact. He’d missed Theo getting together with his fucking fiancé, for crying out loud, when Theo had been the self-proclaimed ‘Slut of Boston’ the last time they saw each other in person (Dad had said that Cousin Tuvia was rolling in his grave). Theo had missed getting to know Thay and Nina. The whole mess was just a damn shame. 

Theo craned his neck, lightly bopping his head against Dane’s shoulder before he straightened back up. “Thanks,” he said, and smiled. The overhead lighting really brought out the shadows in his face and made the expression look more like a grimace, though his tone said otherwise. “Is your sister interested in getting to know Freddo?” 

“My sister?” Now Dane was the one who grimaced. God Almighty, was this ever a can of worms. “Theo, even _I_ don’t talk to Tammy anymore. We broke off contact years ago.” And that was one relationship he didn’t mind letting go of. 

Theo swirled his drink. “That’s too bad. It _was_ kind of funny when she called me a fruitcake at your wedding.” 

“No, it saved my sanity.” Dane let out a bitter laugh. “The only thing that’s sad about it is that we were close when we were kids. She used to follow me around, said I was her favorite, but not anymore. I don’t need her kind of help.” 

“You were the one who…” Theo put down his glass and stared at him. “No, Dane, tell me you didn’t mess up your family relationships for me, too. I told you I’m not worth that.” He closed his eyes and let out his breath through his teeth. “All the fuckin’ times to ask. I should’ve touched base with you about her earlier. Dammit, Dane, I’m sorry.” 

Dane’s stomach clenched in sympathy and sadness. What had happened to Theo to make him flagellate himself like a monk during the Black Plague? At the wedding, he’d been bitter, not constantly apologetic like this. “Theo,” he said, “it really has nothing to do with you. She’s a shit. I mean, her plus-one to Thayer’s bris was an entourage.” 

Theo sucked in his breath and his mouthful of sparkling melon liqueur mix went down his throat too fast, to judge by his gasp. “You’re _shitting_ me,” he said. “Okay, also, Thayer had a bris? I thought your wife was goyische.” 

“She is,” Dane said. “We compromised on the circumcision. It’s a partial, and we did it in the hospital because she wasn’t comfortable with a bunch of people looking at a naked baby getting the chop.” To be honest, he wasn’t terribly comfortable with the idea, either. Dad always swore that no one had looked at Dane too long when he had his done, but the thought still made him squirm. “We brought in a rabbi. It was supposed to just be me, Liz, Thay, my parents, and Tammy.” 

Theo turned towards him a little more. “This’ll be good,” he said, looking mischievous. “Who’d she bring?” 

“Like five friends,” Dane replied. It had been horrifying at the time, and Liz had blown a gasket once everyone left – understandable for a woman who’d been in labor for twenty-three hours and had to ask three times for an epidural – but now it was just funny. “The one who was on prescription steroids started coughing in the sterile field.” 

“Christ on a cracker,” Theo said, wide-eyed. His mouth twisted into a disgusted frown. “Did Thayer get an infection or anything?” 

He’d read Dane’s mind. The two of them had been awake for days on end, keyed up on coffee, anxiety, and the fear that every one of Thayer’s screams was because of something cooking in his lungs. “No. Thank God. We were really worried about it, too. Blanket ban on that friend ever coming around our house.” 

“Thank God,” Theo repeated. He took another few sips and licked his lips. “So who else was in the parade of horrors? Spill. I could use a laugh.” He snorted. “I mean, you already cheered me up with Kosher’s little Animal Planet run.” 

“Ah, shut up.” Dane raised his glass. “Here’s to pigs, huh?” He drank from his glass and, over the rim, watched Theo do the same. “Okay. You wanted worse? It gets worse. She was in Big Brothers, Big Sisters and she brought a couple of kids along. Thirteen or fourteen, maybe.” That was really the main reason for the fight they’d had over the phone the next day, that and the constant giggles during the ceremony. 

Now Theo almost dropped the drink for laughing so hard. “Were they traumatized?” he choked out. “If it was me, oh, God…” He snorted with laughter all over again. “I’d be glad I was already gay. Couldn’t even think about reproduction after that!” 

“Well,” Dane said, “they definitely _looked_ traumatized.” 

“Yeah, huge surprise.” 

They drank in silence for a minute or two. “So yeah,” Dane said, watching the sunset outside the kitchen window. “It really wasn’t you. Her fruitcake comment was just the icing on the banishment cake.” 

“You know, for some _unknown_ reason, I believe you a lot more now,” Theo said with a slight smirk. “What ended up happening to her Big Brothers, Big Sisters gig?” 

“Over after that,” Dane said. “I called the branch. She sure as hell wasn’t welcome anymore.” She’d enjoyed it, he knew, and it was a wrench to do that to her, but her stunt was just inappropriate. 

Theo nodded. “Good shit. What other stories you got?” he asked. “I want to hear more about your crazy family. Are you planning on Thayer getting bar mitzvahed?” 

“His choice. He’s circumcised, so he could be, if he wanted. Nina, too. We had a naming for her and everything.” His parents had been so proud on the occasions when Thayer and Nina had been presented at the synagogue and welcomed into the Jewish community. They didn’t really go, but the kids did have Hebrew names: Tal for Thayer, and Nurit for Nina. “Dew” and “buttercup flower,” good names to signify their family renewing in the next generation. “He’d just have to get a tutor, since he hasn’t gone to Hebrew school.” 

“What’s he like?” Now Theo’s eyes were pleading. It was more than obvious that he regretted their separation as much as Dane did. “Both of your kids. I gotta imagine they’re good kids, but personality-wise…” 

There was nothing wrong, Dane reasoned, with having some fun here. “Thayer’s like you,” he said. “Mini-Theo.” 

Theo slapped a hand over his face. “ _Fuck_.” He pointed to Dane’s almost-empty glass. “That calls for more. You need more?” 

“Theo, chill,” Dane said, chuckling. “I was kidding. He’s a nice kid. Serious, responsible, lightens up when he needs to. He and Nina can be hellions sometimes. You know, I don’t think even you were mini-Theo when you were his age.” 

“Yeah,” said Theo with a grin, “and you’re a fucker. That sentence doesn’t even make sense.” He raised an eyebrow at Dane. “Don’t scare me like that. I don’t think I’d wish a real mini-me on my worst enemy, and believe me, I have some.” 

He’d filled Dane’s head up with stories about his various nemeses over the past couple of months for sure. “That Morningwood guy,” Dane ventured, and nodded when Theo’s widening smile confirmed it. “Yeah, sometime I need to meet him. You don’t just hate people without being provoked.” 

“Absolutely. You done with that?” 

“Sure,” said Dane, and handed over his glass. Seemed like these Derenskys were as invested in being good to guests as his Derenskys were. “Is your nemesis invited to your wedding?” 

Theo loaded the glasses into the dishwasher and slammed it shut with his knee. “I think I have to invite him,” he said in a contemplative voice. “He did come to my brother-in-law’s funeral. Didn’t try to get to me during, either. He calmed Galil down when he started crying, poor kid.” He pulled on a strand of his hair. “How about you? Please tell me you’re coming to the wedding.” 

Dane made the okay sign at him. “I bought my ticket as soon as you told me when it was,” he said. “All of our tickets. All four of us will be there. Do you want us there for the rehearsal, too?” 

“If you want,” Theo said. “It’s the night before, at Hillel, just like the wedding. I think I can get our usual food wizard to cook some really good stuff. Maybe corned beef - that’s Irish _and_ Jewish.” He absently chewed his top lip with one of his bottom canine teeth. “Remind me again, you don’t keep kosher, do you?” 

“Hell, no. No pork, but that’s just because of the pigs and it’s just for me,” Dane said. “I can’t eat meat when I raise that meat on the side.” He’d tried, though. After he got his first pair of pigs, he’d had some bacon with his pancakes at a breakfast restaurant, but he’d had to go throw up five minutes in from sheer disgust and horror. Liz and the kids still ate pork on occasion, although never in the house, and he dealt with it by looking away. 

“There wasn’t going to be pork anyway,” Theo reassured him. At least that was the effect it had. “Some people would definitely complain. It won’t be kosher, though. What are your thoughts on a giant ice-cream cake?” 

Dane’s stomach rumbled right on cue. “That sounds delicious and I want it,” he said. “Also, you’re about five years old. Has Bill told you that?” 

“Bill gives me more credit,” Theo said loftily. “He says I’m _twelve_ whole years old.” He nodded hard and stuck out his lower lip like a kid threatening to hold his breath, which Dane was sure was entirely intentional. “So we’re doing the rehearsal on Friday night and the wedding’s on Saturday afternoon. That’s the only time Rabbi Fleischer could get the other rabbi to sub in – Bill wanted to do it in the morning.” 

“Look at it this way: it gives you more time to prepare,” Dane told him. “My dad’s excited, too. He says he never thought you were actually going to settle down.” 

Theo wiggled his eyebrows. “That makes two of us,” he said. “Oh, listen to this and tell me if you think it’s a good idea. Bill and I think Freddy should be the ring bearer.” 

“If he wants to do it, I think it would be cute,” Dane said with a shrug. “Just don’t wig him out with too much too fast. Is he going to be in pre-K?” 

“No, kindergarten,” Theo said. “He was in school in England already and…right, the cutoffs are different where you live, right? He qualifies for kindergarten here. His birthday is…” He trailed off in the middle of his sentence with a dry gasping noise. “Oh, shit. His birthday’s _today_. And we didn’t even do anything!” 

He looked so crestfallen that Dane would have laughed if he weren’t so familiar with the ‘I’m a shitty parent and I just blew it’ line of thought. “He’s not even going to remember,” he said, putting a consoling hand on Theo’s forearm. “Bill’s giving him a bath, he has a brand-new room, he got to eat my enchilada. What more could a kid want? You’ll do a big party next year if he wants one.” 

“Theo,” Dinah said from the hallway, “the pizza place just called. They’ve got order overload. You okay with waiting another half hour?” 

Theo’s voice was still bleak as he said “That’s fine, Dee.” Dane patted his arm. He knew that deer-in-the-headlights fear of having irreparably scarred your child, but Thayer had survived the accidental dislocation of his shoulder and Freddy would survive one uncelebrated birthday. 

“What’s wrong with _you?_ ” Dinah asked as she came into the kitchen. 

“Theo just realized he forgot Freddy’s birthday,” Dane answered for him. Theo chimed in with a whimper. “Don’t be dramatic, Theo.” 

Dinah cracked a smile. “Oh, he never listens to that,” she said. “Join the club. I’ve been trying to make him lose the stick up his ass all my life.” 

“I’m fine waiting for the pizza,” Theo said, obviously pretending like he hadn’t heard what Dane and Dinah said. All told, Dane thought that was fair. “Don’t give Dane any TJ Special, Dee. He doesn’t eat pork. Stick with the cheese and veggie.” 

A strange, sickened look crossed Dinah’s face, but it disappeared as soon as Dane saw it. “Oh, he doesn’t,” she said. “The pigs. Yeah, that’s understandable. What are we talking about in here? Besides Theo’s world collapsing.” 

“Fuck,” Theo said, and his face collapsed into bleakness again. “It’s Bill’s birthday, too. I’m a horrible fiancé _and_ a horrible dad.” 

“You forgot a double birthday?” Dinah let out a huff. “Yeah. Yeah, _that’s_ unforgivable. I don’t care if Bill forgives you, _I’m_ never letting you hear the end of this.” 

Theo blew out his breath at her. “I figured. You’re kind of annoying that way, Dee.” 

“We _were_ ,” said Dane loudly, stepping between them to nip any potential sibling fight in the bud, “talking about Theo and Bill’s wedding. Theo wants Freddy to be the ring bearer. What do you think of that?” 

“It’s awesome,” Dinah said. “As long as he’s okay with doing that, go for it. Do Phil and Caleb get to do anything?” 

Theo’s expression changed to a guilty one. “Um,” he said, “I wanted you to be my best man. Woman. Phil and Caleb can be groomsmen if they want, I guess? Bill’s having some of his cousins come up with him during the ceremony. I’m sorry, everything’s just been such a clusterfuck.” 

Dinah went over to her brother and gave him a fast hug, then stood with her arm around his waist. He leaned into the touch. “Just keep me in the loop,” she said. “It’s not a problem. Those two could use some humility. Anyway, I’ll definitely be your sister of honor and _I’m_ honored that you asked.” She chuckled, probably at her own punniness, and rubbed his lower back in circles with the palm of one hand. “I think Bill and Freddy are done with Freddy’s bath. Do you want to go up and see him?” 

“Oh, he’s done? I’ll definitely go up.” Theo disengaged and motioned to her, then to Dane. “Do you two want to come up with me? I mean, don’t overwhelm him, but Dane, I want you to see the look on Freddy’s face when he sees the stuff you brought for the first time.” 

“It’s even better to see it in person than talk about it over the phone,” Dinah said. “Seriously, Theo, you’ll flip. Dane brought so much of his kids’ stuff, and he set up the bed pretty much by himself. And there’s stuffed animals –“ 

“Hey, don’t go spoiling the surprise!” Dane protested, although he did so jokingly. He couldn’t care less if Dinah told Theo everything he’d brought. “You think Freddy’ll be okay with having me in his personal space? He seemed kind of wiped out.” 

Theo shrugged. “If he wants you to go, he’ll say so,” he said. “Dee, are you in?” 

“No,” she said, “but thanks for offering. I think I’ll just stay down here and wait for the pizza guy. Do me a favor and take photos if he does something adorable, okay?” 

“Noted,” said Theo. “Actually, I better go check and see if he’s really out of the tub so I don’t scare him in there. Just a second.” He jogged out of the room and, from the sound of it, screamed up the stairs at the absolute top of his lungs, “Hey, Bill, you done in there yet?” 

Dane rolled his eyes at Dinah, who returned the gesture, and raced after him in time to hear Bill, faint and annoyed, reply “We’ve just drained the water, Theodor! What on Earth do you need now?” 

“I think that’s my fault,” Dane whispered in Theo’s ear. “I already pissed him off with the pig. Blame me if you need to.” 

“Definitely will if I need to,” Theo whispered back, and then said just as loudly as before – so loudly that Dane covered his ears – “Dane and I are coming up to see Freddy! Is that okay with you? And him?” 

Bill called back, after a pause during which he presumably cleared everything with Freddy, “Yes, only keep your voice down! I don’t need to swear in front of the lad any more than I already have.” 

“Good enough for me,” Theo said. He made a very acrobatic leap up three steps at once, gestured to Dane with his forefinger, and said, with a cheesy smile on his face, “Follow me.” 

Upstairs, the hallway lights were on, and the humid air smelled like kids’ bath bubbles. Just inside the door to the bathroom, Bill was just tucking in the ends of the towel into which he’d securely bundled a very flushed Freddy when Dane and Theo arrived. He gave them a short wave. “Hello there,” he said. “How are things in the land where pigs roam free?” 

“They’re just amazing,” Theo said. “Dwight and Noah are getting to know their new pet in the laundry room right now.” He got on one knee and touched Freddy’s wet hair, which had curled up shinier and tighter than it was when dry. “Are you ready for bed, Freddy?” 

Freddy nodded at him gravely. “Uncle Bill gave me a bath,” he said with all the seriousness befitting a military funeral. Then, brightening, he added, “I splashed him!” 

Dane sneaked a look at Bill’s torso. There was a giant wet spot down the front of his sweater. “All part of the fun of parenting, huh, Bill?” he said. “Don’t worry, he’ll grow out of it soon.” 

“I’m aware,” Bill said dryly. “Freddy, love, are you ready to put on some pajamas and have a sleep? I know you’re tired. You’ve got a nice, comfortable bed waiting for you in a room of your own, how about that?” 

Freddy’s face fell and he stuck his thumb back in his mouth. “I want to sleep with _Uncles_ ,” he said around it. “Please, Uncle.” 

Theo got back on his feet as he and Bill exchanged a look and a nod. “All right, love,” Bill said. “You can sleep in our bed tonight. Uncle Theo and Cousin Dane and I can tuck you in after you’ve gotten into your pajamas.” 

“And the piggy,” Freddy said through a yawn. “I want the piggy to come.” 

Theo picked Freddy up and adjusted him against his hip. “That’s not our pig, Freddo,” he told him. “That’s Noah and Dwight’s pig now. He’s their pet and they’ll take him home and love him, but we can visit. Does that sound good?” 

“Mmm,” said Freddy, who didn’t sound happy at all with that particular piece of news. “Uncle Slomo? Can _we_ have a piggy?” 

Dane couldn’t help a laugh. “Someday I’ll bring you one, pal,” he said. “I’ll try my hardest.” 

The poor bastards masquerading as parents’ eyes met again, this time clearly horrified. “We’ll see,” said Bill in a slightly strangled voice. “We’ve already got you a surprise. Let’s go and see if he’s hiding under your bed.” 

Though Freddy pouted, it seemed to Dane that he knew how far he could push his luck. The little squirt was definitely getting a piglet on his next birthday, though, because Theo would have a cow (or maybe a pig). “I want my pajamas,” he said. “Please.” 

“Well, okay!” Theo said. He carried Freddy to his bedroom with Dane and Bill behind him. Dane took a moment to look around at the yellow-painted walls, the cozy twin bed, the decorative rug on the floor that had a bird’s-eye view of a set of train tracks looping around a town – Theo and Bill had outdone themselves, but Dane was definitely going to credit himself with at least _part_ of the welcoming atmosphere. 

Bill pressed his thumb against his lower lip. “Dane, where did you put his pajamas?” he asked. 

Dane pointed at the dresser. “Top drawer on the left. Should be plenty that fit him.” 

“Thank you,” Bill said, and opened the drawer, then pulled out a pair. “Oh, these have got feet! Freddy, do you want pajamas with feet and…” He squinted at the design. “Paddington Bear on them? Yes, that’s Paddington Bear.” 

“Yes!” Freddy said, clinging to Theo and laying his head on his shoulder. Theo’s hair fell down around his small face and he batted at it like a kitten. “I want the feet, please.” 

Bill unzipped the front of the pajamas. “Might be a bit large for him,” he muttered, “but better than the alternative. Do you think you can put these on yourself, Freddy, or do you want help?” 

Freddy’s brow furrowed as he went deep into thought. “Myself,” he said. “I can do it.” 

Theo set him down on the floor, and Bill gave him the pajamas. “Let us know if you need help with the zipper,” Theo said. “We’ll look away so you can have some privacy.” At that, Bill reached out and pushed the bedroom door closed. 

Dane took that as his cue to turn around and let Freddy have his decency. As he did, something caught his eye on Freddy’s bookshelf, which was mostly stuffed with picture books and a few chapter books that he guessed Freddy would grow into, too. “Theo,” he said, voice low, “is that Freddy’s surprise there on the shelf?” 

“Huh?” Theo followed his gaze. “Oh, yeah, it is.” He squatted and inclined his neck towards Carpet, who had stuffed himself into the second shelf from the bottom next to half of a pair of bookends and a dehumidifier. The cat’s eyes gave off a creepy glow in the shadows. “What are you doing down there, huh?” 

“Is _that_ where he’s gotten to?” Bill joined Theo by the bookshelf, standing instead of squatting. “He must be hiding in here again. Too bad for him he can’t hide anymore.” 

Behind them, Dane could hear Freddy struggling to pull up his zipper. “Who’s hiding?” Freddy asked. The zipper finally went up, though not without significant and audible effort. “I’m done, Uncle Bill. Who’s hiding?” 

Theo reached into the shelf and pulled out the cat, who – true to form – acquiesced without so much as a meow. That was a smart cat. “Your surprise,” he said. “Turn around, Freddy. You should meet him.” He stroked Carpet’s head. 

Freddy turned, and immediately ran over to them. “Puss!” he cried. “Is it my puss?” 

“ _Puss?_ ” Dane repeated. Was Freddy seventy or something? 

“Small town,” Bill said to him. “Small _British_ town, don’t question it. Freddy, this is your cat. His name is Carpet. Would you like to hold him?” 

“Carpet,” Freddy repeated. His brow furrowed and his eyes darted to the rug on the floor. “That’s a carpet.” 

Theo muffled a laugh through his nose and knelt again. Carpet reached out a paw towards Freddy, curious. “You’re a smart kid,” he said. “Carpet is the cat’s name, too. Our other cat is Rug. I thought they’d go well together.” 

“Oh.” Freddy sucked in his cheeks. “Can I pet Carpet, Uncle?” His hands twitched and his fingers wiggled in midair, as if he couldn’t wait to start stroking and petting. Dane remembered feeling the same way when he was eight and Mom and Dad brought a dog home. The big dummy had drooled all over the house, but only Dad cared. 

Theo stood up and adjusted Carpet in his arms. Carpet’s claws sank a little ways into his sleeve, visible against the fabric. “I’ll do you one better, buddy,” he said. “Sit on the bed and I’ll put him in your lap.” 

Eagerly, and so quickly he almost lost his footing on the floor, Freddy climbed up onto the bed and sat cross-legged. Anticipation marked his entire body, especially his smiling face. “Now, please?” He held out his arms. 

“Be careful,” Bill warned, and Theo unstuck Carpet from his clothing, then set him gently down in Freddy’s lap. “You might frighten him if you pet too hard. Light touches, all right?” 

Carpet shifted and curled into a ball. Freddy looked down at him. “Good puss,” he said, “good Carpet. I want to pet you.” He raised his hand above Carpet’s head, maybe waiting to see if the cat would protest, and stroked him from his head down to his tail along the line of his spine. “Pet, pet, pet, pet. You get a pet.” With every repeat of the word, he patted Carpet with his dimpled hand. 

From what Dane could hear, Carpet wasn’t purring, but he also didn’t look like he was about to jump off Freddy’s lap or bite his hand. Neutral, well, that was a good attitude for a cat meeting his human for the first time. “Good, Freddy,” he said. “That’s the way you pet a kitty. Only pet his fur front to back, not the other way around.” 

“Yes, Dane’s right,” said Bill. “You’re doing wonderfully. Do you like Carpet?” 

Freddy nodded and touched one of Carpet’s curled paws, which Carpet summarily withdrew under his body. “He’s a good, good cat,” he said. “I love him. He’s my Carpet.” 

“He loves you, too,” Theo said. Carpet slitted his eyes at him, stood up, and jumped off the bed. “Did I jinx it?” 

“Oh,” Freddy said softly. “He doesn’t like me anymore.” 

That misconception could never be allowed to stand. Nothing sadder than a sad kid. “Of course he does,” Dane soothed. He reached down and picked Freddy up, bounced him, and then tossed him a little ways into the air, just like Thayer loved when he was Freddy’s age. “He likes you, just like I do. He just wants to go have a bath now, like you.” 

“Dane, _don’t!_ ” Bill reached for Freddy, who was giggling. “You don’t know if he wants to be held – don’t wind him up…” 

“I like you, too,” Freddy interrupted. “Throw me! Please throw me again, Cousin Dane!” 

Dane gave him a squeeze. “Your wish is my command,” he said, and tossed Freddy up in the air. Freddy’s smile widened as he came down, so Dane did it again, this time over his head. 

“Don’t make him hit the ceiling,” Theo warned, face tense. 

“I like it, I like it!” Freddy said. “Again!” Dane lifted him up. “I’m flying –“ And then he threw up on Dane’s head. 

Dane shut his eyes in the split second of warning he had, but it wasn’t enough to protect his hair or the collar of his shirt. Freddy looked stricken, not sick; it must have been all the bouncing. His fault, then. “Oh,” he said, “ _there’s_ my enchilada.” 

Theo’s mouth pinched in disgust. “Gross!” he said. “Freddy, are you okay?” 

“I did a vom,” Freddy answered. “I’m s-sorry, Cousin Dane. I didn’t want to.” 

“It’s my fault,” Dane replied. “ _I’m_ the one who should be sorry, Freddy. I upset your tummy.” He set Freddy down on the carpet. “You don’t want to be near me right now. I’ll get you icky. Theo, is there anywhere I can take a shower?” 

Theo pointed his thumb towards the door. “Down the hall to the left,” he said. “There’s some soap in there.” His eyebrows went up. “I’d say sorry, but that was your fault.” 

“Thanks a lot,” Dane said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He’d better get out of the room before he started dripping on the carpet. 

In the bathroom, he stripped off his T-shirt and curled it up in a ball, inside out, so the puke would stay where it was supposed to. His pants were okay, thankfully, and so was his state of mind. He was no stranger to being thrown up on. Soon, he supposed, neither Bill nor Theo would be, either. The joys of being a parent were many. 

His shower didn’t take long. There was a half-full bottle of cheap two-in-one soap-shampoo stuff that smelled like Axe (no doubt Phil or Caleb’s fault) sitting on a ledge, so he used that. Better to smell like an obnoxious teenage boy than to smell like the alternative. His hair was going to be a mess of curls, too, but he was going to suck it up and keep his mouth shut. Liz would say he had made his bed and she wasn’t about to get up and remake it for him, so he’d better lie in it. 

When he got out, Freddy’s room was empty, but a light was on in Bill and Theo’s. “What’d I miss?” Dane asked as he came in. Bill and Theo were both sitting on their bed, where they’d tucked Freddy under the covers. He looked tiny in the huge dark bed, but then, he _was_ tiny. “Are you ready to go to bed, Freddy?” 

“We’re just putting him to bed,” Bill said. “Freddy, Uncle Theo and I want to go have dinner downstairs. We’ll be up soon.” 

“The pizza got here while you were in the shower,” Theo said to Dane. “You can go down if you want.” 

Dane looked at Freddy and shook his head. “I’ll wait,” he said, even though his stomach was growling again. He needed to stay up here and make sure he fixed what he’d broken. “You should have a good sleep tonight,” he told Freddy. “I think Uncle Theo snores, but Uncle Bill can turn him over.” 

Freddy burrowed into his pillow. “Good night, Cousin Dane,” he said, the sound nearly lost in the bed. “You smell good.” 

Had to be the Axe. Kids had no taste. “Thank you,” Dane said. Bill kissed Freddy’s forehead and flipped off the lamp. “You have a good night, too.” The three of them left the room quietly; Bill kept the door open just a bit. “Nice lamp,” Dane said. 

“Thanks,” Theo said. “So, no hard feelings?” 

“God, no,” Dane told him, snorting. “I deserved that. It was time for me to…wait.” Time. Crap, there was something he had to do tonight. He could easily do it downstairs, though; the dinner setting would make for a good gimmick. “Hold on, just let me get my laptop. You guys go on.” 

He ran to the guest room and got his laptop in its case, then went downstairs. The pizza had indeed arrived, along with Boaz, who wore the same hat he’d had on yesterday when they went out for dinner. “Hello there,” he said, waving. “The pizza place ran low on delivery people. Dee just had me pick it up for you.” 

“Dane,” said Dinah, “put a shirt on.” 

“Can’t,” Dane told her. “Freddy threw up on me.” Then, guiltily, he remembered where he’d left the remains. “Sorry, Bill, I left my shirt on the bathroom floor. I can go get it.” 

Bill touched his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Dane, you’re a guest. I’ll get it. Back in a minute.” 

As Bill left, Dane and Theo sat down at the kitchen table, which was covered in pizza boxes. Phil and Caleb were already digging in. “Hey, is that Kosher?” Dane asked, giving Noah’s lap a pointed look. “I take it he likes you.” 

“Yup,” said Noah happily, and fed Kosher a piece of cheese from his piled-high plate. 

Okay, that wasn’t good. “Hey, no, no, no!” Dane snatched the plate away from Noah and glared at him. “He doesn’t get people food. Vegetable treats, maybe. He’ll get an upset stomach and these guys can’t get too fat. It gives them health problems.” 

“Oh.” Noah blinked at Dane, then kissed Kosher’s nose. “I’m sorry, Kosher. I won’t let you get health problems.” 

“It could’ve been worse,” Dwight put in. “Kosher was going for the TJ Special before I stopped him. Didn’t want him to turn into a cannibal on us.” 

“What a horrifying thought,” Dane said. It really was. “ _I_ don’t even eat pork.” 

“Yeah, I know,” said Dinah. “Pizza? You can have cheese or veggie.” She handed him a paper plate and a stack of napkins across the table. “It’s really goopy. Watch out – Caleb! Do _not_ throw that cheese at your brother.” She grimaced. “See what I’m talking about?” 

Dane lifted a piece of pizza and bit into it. “Definitely,” he said through his mouthful. Fuck, awesome. Boston pizza wasn’t half bad. Then again, he already knew that. When he’d arrived two nights ago, exhausted from that long-ass drive, Dinah had had pizza waiting already. It was good even when it was lukewarm. 

Bill came back a couple of minutes later. “The shirt’s in the laundry,” he said, and loaded up a plate with veggie and pepperoni both. “Theo, try not to eat too much of that. You’ll have horrific gas tonight if you don’t listen to me.” 

“I don’t want to hear about Uncle Theo’s gas,” Phil said. “Can we not talk about it?” 

“Phil has a point,” Dinah said. “No talking about my brother’s gas at the table.” 

Theo took an enormous bite of his slice. “I won’t gross you out with the details, in that case,” he said, and swallowed. “So what’d you need the laptop for, Dane?” 

Dane smiled and ate some pizza, just to draw out the suspense. Theo wasn’t the only one who could make radical changes. “It’s my new job,” he said. “Remember I told you I was working on some stuff?” 

“Can’t forget it,” said Theo. “You were cagey as hell about it, too. What in the name of all things good are you working on that you couldn’t talk about? And a _new job?_ Congratulations! You finagle a salary like the newscaster one or what?” 

“Actually, the salary comes from ad revenue,” Dane said, and relished everyone’s confused expressions. “The newscaster thing is old news now. No pun intended.” He chuckled. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you. I started a new YouTube channel a couple of months ago. It’s all about how to raise potbellied pigs.” 

“No way!” Dinah exclaimed. “Dane, that’s perfect. What’s it called?” 

“The channel’s called Such a Boar.” There were a few snorts and snickers at that, especially from Dwight and Noah. “Yes, thanks, that reaction is the reason I named it that. The videos are called The Pigcast with Dane, episode number whatever. Sometimes I bring in fellow breeders.” He was already in talks with one of the better-known pig aficionados in the area to negotiate a guest appearance. 

Caleb was still giggling. “It’s called Such a Boar,” he said, seemingly to himself. “That’s really funny.” He rested his head in his hands and put his elbows on the table; the left one landed in some spilled pizza sauce. 

“Is that from his dad’s side or ours?” Dane asked Dinah. “Because I’d really rather not take responsibility for that.” 

She shrugged and reached for another slice. “No way to tell.” 

It was another few minutes of pizza eating and idle chatter before Boaz brought the subject up again. “Why’d you bring yer laptop down here, Dane?” he asked. “Are ye planning a pigcast in the kitchen?” 

“That was my intention,” Dane said, “if you guys don’t mind. I hate to kick the kids out, but I can wait for everyone to finish. I kind of need quiet to do it.” If it wasn’t okay, he could probably get away with doing a pigless pigcast in the guest room. Noah and Dwight probably weren’t going to let Kosher out of their sight behind a closed door, if Noah’s starry eyes whenever he looked down at his lap inhabitant were a sign. 

“Hmm,” Theo said, and looked at Dinah, raising one eyebrow. She raised hers back at him with a nod. “You know what,” he said, “we’ll just kick a few people out. Dwight, you’re well-behaved, so you can stay in here. Phil, Caleb, Noah, and Boaz, you guys go upstairs and play or something.” 

“Can we bring Kosher?” Caleb asked. 

“No, Caley, Dane needs Kosher for his pigcast.” Theo smiled. “Still love that name, Dane.” 

Noah crossed his arms and grunted. “I’m well-behaved! I want to be in it.” 

“Hey, I know what they can do,” Dwight said. He looked at Noah. “You know where the console TV is, right? Second guest room? You guys should get out the old NES and SNES games and go to town.” Noah brightened visibly. Video games were apparently just as much of a pull as a video. 

Caleb rubbed his chin, just like Dane had seen both his mother and his uncle do. “Can we have some of the stuff in your mini-fridges?” 

Theo held out his arms. “Anything and everything except the beer. Go wild. Boaz, if you don’t know how to work the console TV, Noah’ll show you – it was mine at my parents’ house. You guys just keep the volume down so you don’t wake Freddy up.” 

“Wait, what about me?” Bill asked, breaking his pizza-filled silence. “Am I well-behaved enough to merit staying in the kitchen?” 

“Yup. I don’t think you’ll disturb the pigcast.” Theo reached across the table to squeeze Bill’s hand. “That’s why I’m marrying you.” 

“And I’m horribly-behaved, sure,” Boaz said cheerfully. “You’re right to get rid o’ me. I might drink some of that beer, Theo, but I’ll replenish it.”

Theo surveyed the table, pulled all the pizza boxes towards him, and began to stack them up. “It’s a better deal than I’d expect,” he said. “The stuff in the mini-fridge is cheap. Why don’t you guys take the pizza up, too? Less of a chance of you coming back down to disturb us.” 

The four banished guests were very enthusiastic about that prospect, grabbing their plates and napkins and hightailing it upstairs. The table was left messy in their wake, but Dane had little time to appreciate it. As soon as Noah, Boaz, and the boys were out of earshot – Noah having taken the time to whisper something in Dwight’s ear that had him wide-eyed, probably sexual in nature, after he transferred the pig to Dwight’s lap - Theo flipped off the kitchen lights. 

“Hey, what’s the idea here?” Dane demanded. “I need the lights on to make videos.” 

“It’s a special ceremony.” Theo’s voice came sepulchrally through the darkness. “We’re close again, so that means you’re ready to be initiated into the great order of Those Who Know the Secret.” Dane could practically hear the capital letters. “Dee, flashlight.” 

Bill gave his tongue a loud click. “This is _ridiculous_ ,” he said, just as a flashlight came on under Theo’s chin and illuminated his grinning face. “It’s not Halloween yet. You don’t need to put on all this ridiculous folderol to let him in on a secret.” 

“Yes, we do,” Dwight said. “That’s how Theo broke the news to me.” 

“Wait, stop. What news?” Dane was done with all this cryptic crap. “I thought I was going to record a video, not do whatever this is…and you’re scaring Kosher.” Another squeal like the one he’d just heard drifted towards his ears. 

“Oh.” Theo frowned. “I…didn’t think of that. Can someone put the lights on again?” 

“I’ll get it,” said Bill. He rose with a shuffle, and Dane tracked his path towards the light switches by the shooshing of his socks on the wooden floor. Then the lights came on again, revealing the fact that Theo had on a giant hooded costume cloak made out of cheap black velour. “Theo, what is _that?_ ” 

Theo put his hands on his hips and craned his neck. “My initiation cape! Like it?” 

“No one answer that,” said Dwight, petting Kosher’s head. 

Theo reached into his cloak and took out a book, which he set down on the table in front of Dane. “Read it and weep, Dane. You’re one of about ten people who’s in on it now.” 

“Huh?” Dane examined the front cover. At first, it just looked like a badly-bound book like you’d find in a Goodwill, the kind with the “stripped book” warning inside, but then he recognized it as a galley proof. One of his looser-lipped colleagues at the station had brought one in once from a sister in publishing. “ _The Valley of the Bones_ , by…” No _way_. “Where did you get this?” 

“Get it?” Theo ran both hands down his cape, petting himself. “I wrote it!” 

Dane could feel his eyes bugging out. “No way,” he said. “You _shit!_ You mean you’re not a hit man for the Jewish Mafia?” 

“Nope,” said Theo, and blew a raspberry at him. “Just this. What do you think?” 

Dane knew he should have been more surprised. Somewhere in the back of his head, whatever homunculus was controlling him had fainted dead away. This was Theo, though, professional purveyor of secrets, not least that he’d survived a fucking Nazi attack and settled down while he was at it. “Jeez,” he said. “It’s been you the whole time?” 

“Nineteen years, yep,” Theo said. “Why do you think I’m not open about it? I wouldn’t have a second of privacy if anyone knew.” He came up behind Dane and put his hand on the table next to the proof. “I don’t think I need to say it, but this doesn’t leave the room, okay? Not even your wife.” 

“Got it.” Dane leaned his head back to look up at Theo. His facial features looked huge from this angle. “Hey, I can see up your nose.” 

“No freakout?” Dinah asked. “No screaming, no asking for favors? He’s taking this better than you did, Dwight.” 

Dwight grumbled something unintelligible. “Don’t compare us,” Dane protested. “He was probably younger back then. Anyway, no freakouts here.” He brought his head down to a less painful position. “I’ll keep your secret, Theo. Locked lips.” He pressed his together. 

Theo probably couldn’t have looked more bowled over if someone had actually hit him with a bowling ball. He cleared his throat and said, with a goofy grin, “Then come over here and give me a hug!”

That was an easy enough request to obey. Dane stood and swept Theo into his tightest bear hug, which he supposed was a little awkward when half of the hug had no shirt on. Theo seemed to enjoy it, though. He hugged Dane back just as enthusiastically and patted his back hard enough to sting. “Glad to ease your mind,” Dane said. “I’m honored.” 

“So am I,” Theo told him. “And I want you here for Freddy’s first Halloween. Please come back. It’ll be fun.” 

He hated to disappoint, but ad revenue only went so far. “Theo, I’m not sure if I can afford –“ 

“I’ll pay for it,” Theo said. “Please. We’ve missed so much. I want you here.” 

He supposed he would, after all, never forgive himself if he missed something really cute. “Okay,” Dane said. “I’ll be here, I promise. I’ll even help with his costume if you want.” 

Theo hugged him even harder, then released him. “Thank you,” he said. Now his face was sober. “Thank you so much.” 

Dwight got up from his chair and came over to them with Kosher in his arms. “Hate to break up the family fun time, but this guy’s getting restless,” he said. “Can we do your pigcast now?” 

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Dane said. He took his laptop off the kitchen counter, opened it up, and booted it up at the head of the table. The light was best there, and he didn’t want his face to look like a horror-movie mask. “You guys want to be in it?” 

Bill shook his head, as did Dinah. “I’m good,” she said. “Dwight?” 

“Sure, why not?” Dwight shrugged. “He _is_ my pig. How about you, Theo?” 

“Rather keep my face off the Internet if I can,” Theo said. “You know, for the reasons I just told you about.” 

T.D. Darrens was pretty famous for never showing his face. His author photos always showed him with a hat over it, or with his head plunged into shadow so that nothing could be seen. Dane had always thought it was a little pretentious, but now, well… “Sure, I understand,” he said, and opened his video recorder. “Dwight, the pig, please?” 

Dwight handed Kosher over. Kosher licked Dane’s hand. “Good boy,” he said. “Everyone out of the line of sight?” Nods all around. “Okay, good.” He pressed ‘record’ and plastered on a big smile. “Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Pigcast with Dane…and Kosher!” He held up the piglet, who sniffed the screen and scrabbled a little ways towards the keyboard. “Kosher is three months old. He’s a present for two of my cousins’ friends.” 

“I’m one of the friends,” Dwight said, leaning over Dane’s shoulder. 

“Hey there!” Dane affected his best look of surprise. It was always fun to razz his special guests. “So this is our tenth pigcast, and as a treat for all of you viewers, I’ll be talking about how to raise little guys like this one so they stay happy and healthy. I’m currently in my cousin’s kitchen, which is why the setting is a little different.” Kosher leaned towards the screen again. 

Dwight scratched Kosher’s head. “My husband named him,” he said. “I had no input. So if the name’s stupid, uh, you know who to blame.” 

Dane nodded at the computer. “This is very true,” he said. “So let’s start from the beginning. You all actually got to watch Kosher being born, if you remember. His mother is one of my breeding sows and her name is Snouts. As soon as Kosher and his siblings were born, I –“ 

“CAMEO APPEARANCE!” Dane whipped his head around just as Phil and Caleb ran by, giggling their heads off. His mouth fell open. “We’re in the video!” Caleb shouted. 

“I told you two to stay upstairs!” Theo stomped over to them and scruffed them both – that was the best description for how he grabbed them by the backs of their collars. “Now you ruined your cousin’s video!” 

“No, they didn’t ruin it,” Dane said. He had a policy of not editing his videos except to put his banner at the beginning, but this would just add some funny spice, even as annoying as it was. “So those two are my cousin’s nephews, his sister’s kids.” 

Dinah called from out of view, “Hi, that’s me.” 

“Right.” Dane winked at her. Theo bared his teeth at his nephews, not at all threateningly by their barely-suppressed giggles, and let go of them. They immediately went to the refrigerator and pulled it open. “It looks like the two of them are just hungry,” he said. “Teenagers, huh? That’s something they have in common with Kosher here. As soon as he was born and dried off, he started nursing from his mother right away, just like his brothers and sisters. Piglets nurse –“ 

“DRIVE-BY PORKINGS!” Phil and Caleb called in tandem, voices just slightly muffled by the contents of their faces, as they ran back the other way. Strips of meat flapped over each ear and out of their mouths, undoubtedly bacon. Theo ran after them this time, yelling about how grounded they were. 

It took Dane longer to regain his composure this time. “So that happened,” he said faintly. Kosher licked his chin. “Hi, Kosher. Um, Dinah? Why do you keep bacon in the house where they can get it?” 

“Cool your jets,” Dinah said. “It’s turkey bacon.” 

“Oh.” Dane couldn’t help sighing with relief. “I don’t know if I told you all, but I don’t eat pork.” 

“ _Damn_ it!” A thunk sounded, and Dane looked over to see that Dinah had just banged her forehead against the table. “I can’t take it anymore,” she whimpered. “Dane, you accidentally ate some pepperoni when you got here. It was under the cheese and I didn’t know you didn’t eat it and, uh, you were tired. You kind of didn’t notice.” 

“I ate _what?_ ” His voice came out in a shriek, like he’d just been kicked in the balls. “Oh, God. Oh, _God!_ ” It was two days ago, he knew. He was being irrational. Still, he was struck with the sudden urge to go to the bathroom and pull a Freddy until he got rid of any lingering pork in his stomach. “Kosher, I am so sorry.” He snuggled the piglet against his face. “Everyone, I’m sorry. I’m a horrible person.” 

Dwight leaned into view again. “If it makes you feel any better, Kosher tried to eat some meat pizza like twenty minutes ago,” he said. “You’re not a horrible person, but he’s a cannibal.” 

“Cannibal pig,” Dane said. He’d forgotten about that. “Well, I’d just like to apologize again to all my loyal viewers.” He had twenty thousand of them and he didn’t think his viewership would drop all that much if a few of them stomped off in disgust, but his stomach still twisted in guilt. Pepperoni under the freaking cheese. He should have been more careful. 

“I don’t think it makes you a bad person if it was an accident,” Dinah offered. “What my sons did, _that_ wasn’t an accident. You ate some pepperoni and you didn’t know it. Big deal. You won’t do it again.” 

“And it was only once,” Bill said. 

“That’s true,” Dane conceded. He took in a deep breath, blew it out again, and smiled first at Kosher and then at the webcam as his heart rate went back to normal. “Now that we’ve established I’m not, in fact, a horrible person,” he said, “the pigcast can go on as planned.” He gave the computer a thumbs up. “Let’s continue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A _bris_ , from the Hebrew _brit milah_ , is a ceremony during which a Jewish baby boy's foreskin is removed at eight days of age. The phrase refers to the Biblical covenant of circumcision. 
> 
> A _nudnik_ , from the Yiddish, can be roughly translated as a good-for-nothing or a pain in the ass. 
> 
> I've done my best to research the care and feeding of potbellied pigs for this story. If I get anything wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me. [This](http://www.poochandclaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/classic-grey-tabby.jpg) is Carpet, by the way, and [this](http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/swine/vietnamesepotbelly/potpig2.jpg) is Kosher (both photos courtesy of Google Images).
> 
> As always, I'm godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr. :)


	19. And His Banner Over Me Was Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill and Theo finally tie the knot, but not without complications.

i.

“Hey, pass the corn chips,” Noah said. He poked Dwight in the shoulder, hard. “Hey! I’m starving!”

Dwight threw the bag over. “Yeah, yeah.” He had never seen Theo’s guest room so crowded, but Theo had never had the opportunity to throw a bachelor party, either. There were at least fifteen people crammed into the room, some sitting on the bed like him and Noah and some sprawled out or sitting on the floor. The air rang with the noise of fifteen people talking at once, so much that his head fuzzed whenever he tried to concentrate on one specific conversation. 

He shuffled backward on the bed, only to accidentally push his ass against Dinah’s sock-covered feet. “Watch it,” she said. She and Boaz were cuddling, propped against the headboard, while a bowl of pretzel mix and two sodas on the bedtable showed what kept their interest instead of playing Theo’s video games. 

“Oh, sorry,” Dwight said. “No room in here.” 

Apparently satisfied with his corn chips, Noah let himself fall over backwards with a sigh and landed with his head in Dwight’s lap. “Hi,” he said, his eyes twinkling. Dwight didn’t think it was with mischief, either. “How’s it –“ A triumphant whoop from the video-game players covered up his last word. 

Dwight stroked his Mohawk and cupped a hand around one of his ears. “What?” 

“How’s it hangin’?” Noah repeated. 

“It isn’t,” Dwight said, and combed his fingers through Noah’s hair. He knew sometimes he could come across as a lot more blunt and abrasive than he really was with the monosyllable thing, but it was one of the only useful ways to head people off at the pass. “Are you sticking around for a while this time?” 

Noah nodded, which in his current position meant that the back of his head moved against Dwight’s thigh with a rustle of spiky, gelled hair. “As long as it’s more interesting up here,” he said. “They’re mostly talking about work and stuff downstairs.” 

‘Downstairs’ meant Bill’s bachelor party, which on a practical level meant that Theo’s house was now divided into two floors of very different kinds of revelry. Up here, it was more like debauchery without the naked people (but with a few more drinks, anything was possible). Downstairs, from what Noah had said, meant a living room filled with Bill’s friends and family, Noah’s brother and sister, and multiple people knitting. Even Caleb had spent most of the evening so far down at the quieter party. For his sake and Oreet’s, Dwight hoped that the adults were going easy on the penis jokes. 

“Thanks for spying.” Dwight traced Noah’s cheeks and chin with one hand and fed him a corn chip with the other. Farther away, in the glow of Theo’s console TV, the reporter who’d started all the trouble with his attack – Ellen or Ellie or something – bounced Mario off a mushroom and thrust her fist in the air. It was a mystery why Theo’d chosen the GameCube for his party game, even if he had Mario Party. Probably just a sign of Theo’s disdain for first-person shooters. “Anything interesting?” He raised his voice on the last word to carry above Gad and Sima’s conversation with Theo and Bill’s midwife friend in the far corner. The word ‘episiotomy’, he was pretty sure, had just come up. 

Down on the floor, Dane somehow managed to take a bite out of three pretzels at once, then got to his feet and cheered at the same time as Theo scored a point. Theo clutched his controller with white knuckles, _way_ too serious for someone who was just playing Mario Party. “You see that?” Dane crowed. He made finger guns at Theo. “Way to win it!” 

Another war cry went up in response. Phil’s blond head surfaced from the swarm of adults on the floor. He’d spent most of the evening in here where Caleb preferred to hang out with the tea-and-cheesecake crowd in the living room. “Good going, Uncle Theo!” he said. “Dane, can I have those pretzels?” 

Dane passed them over. Dwight turned his attention back to Noah, who reached up and tweaked his nose. “Honk honk,” he snickered. “Omer’s eating all the finger sandwiches, that’s what’s interesting downstairs. You ever heard of watercress?” 

“It’s a fancy plant, isn’t it?” Dwight said. “Bill’s going all-out down there, huh?” He blamed the British relatives. Those great-aunts of Bill’s were probably more like Theo in terms of their taste in food, but there were a few more stuffy family members who’d agreed to make the flight over for the wedding. 

“Think so. I tried some. It’s really nasty.” Noah heaved himself up and picked his soda bottle up off the floor. His shirt rode up; Dwight could see a section of his skinny back, with the bumps of his spine bisecting it. “I could’ve used some of this down here.” He unscrewed the cap and took a swig. “You want?” 

Dwight shook his head. Germs were germs whether he swapped spit with their owner or not, and that soda had been out of the mini-fridge for hours. Undoubtedly, it was both warm and flat. “I’ll get my own if I start wanting one,” he said. 

Theo slurped from his drink, threw his arm out to the side, and bonked Ellen in the side of the head. “God, sorry!” he said, horrified. “Guys, you gotta cut me off.” He leaned to the side, but that only sent him crashing right into Dane, and then suddenly, everyone was talking at the same time. 

“Hey!” Dane exclaimed, and shoved Theo. “Watch where you put your head.” 

“Yeah, well, you watch your ham hands!” Theo told him. 

“You mind?” Gad hollered. “We’re trying to have a conversation over here –“ 

“ – yeah, a gross conversation,” Phil said, making a face that was both disgusted and horrifying. Dwight hadn’t known that kid could touch his nose with his tongue. It was pretty scary. 

Dinah clapped her hands behind Dwight and Noah, and whistled. Dwight looked at her; she had both of her fingers in her mouth, a move he’d never managed to master himself. Lucky Dinah. “Okay, let’s all quiet down!” she called out. “Theo, keep your hands to yourself.” 

“Sorry,” Theo mumbled. He cast his eyes down into his lap. Dwight felt a sudden urge to go over and give him a hug. Theo always got so sensitive when he drank; how much of it was real, though, and how much of it was just his puppy-dog eyes? “I’ll be more careful.” 

Dinah cleared her throat as her cheeks turned pink. She probably hadn’t expected everyone to be staring at her like she was responsible for whatever happened next. Youngest child syndrome – Dwight was well-acquainted with the need for attention that you subsequently didn’t want at all. “Okay, um, you guys should just go back to what you were doing,” she said, her voice small. “Except for you, Phil. People can talk about whatever they want to talk about.” 

Phil pouted and mouthed something that Dwight thought was ‘ick.’ With that cue, the babble in the room resumed. 

Noah shifted his head in Dwight’s lap and kissed his thigh. “Think I might go downstairs,” he said. “It’s getting really hot in here.” 

In any other situation, that word could have had either meaning, but Dwight was sweating hard enough to know that Noah meant the temperature. “Yeah, it really is,” he said. “Can you hold on a minute? _Theo!_ ” Theo glanced up. “Can I open the window? It’s roasting in here.” 

Theo, whose mouth was full of some snack food or other, nodded and swallowed. “Sure,” he said. “No problem.” 

Dwight gave him a thumbs-up, slid away from Noah across the comforter to his husband’s muttered protest, and carefully placed his feet so that the two people sitting between the bed and the wall wouldn’t get jostled too much when he stood up. “Sorry about this, guys.” He picked his way across the sprawled legs of Theo’s friend from the Village, the one who played the guy running the stocks. “You okay there, Dorian?” 

“Yup, no problem.” Dorian was pretty damn amiable for a big, bulky guy. His thighs looked like they could crush your head if his fists didn’t get to it first, but Dwight had never even heard him raise his voice. 

Dwight pulled the shade up and cranked the window open. A gust of cold air hit him in his sweaty face and he sighed with relief. “Fuck, that’s so much better. Whose smart idea was it to put everyone in the guest room, anyway?” 

“Theo’s,” Noah answered, although Dwight wasn’t expecting one. “Remember? You said we should go out somewhere and Theo said he didn’t want to get sloshed the night before the wedding and he’s had it up to here with people anyway, and –“ 

Dwight huffed at him. “I remember what Theo said, you doofus.” Sometimes, the childish insults were the best, and so were the childish moves. With that thought, he flopped back onto the bed and gave his husband a perfunctory noogie. “Looks like Theo’s doing a good job of getting sloshed right here,” he added after Noah had finished squeaking. 

“Someone better cut him off,” Noah agreed. He fixed his messed-up hair with a palm. “Okay, I’m going downstairs. You okay up here by your lonesome, big guy?” 

Dwight smooched the top of his head, which smelled like the watermelon-scented gel he’d been trying out lately. It was definitely an improvement. “ _Yet_ again, don’t call me that,” he said. “I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll go hang out with Gad and Sima.” And the midwife and quilter, whose name he could never remember despite her having delivered Geula. The older he got, the more closely his brain probably looked like Swiss cheese. 

Noah hopped off the bed and left, slamming the door and sending another breeze into Dwight’s face. He closed his eyes and relished it for a second or two. Then he stood up and waded across the human maze on the floor to sit down behind Gad and Sima. “What are you guys talking about?” he asked. 

“Same old,” Gad said. His back was visibly sweaty, leaving a stain on his white shirt. “Mostly kid stuff. Martha’s been asking how Sima did after Geula was born.” 

“Healthier than I was after Galil, if you can believe it,” Sima said. The midwife – Martha, Dwight had to remember that – nodded. “I don’t know, maybe there was something to that whole twelve pounds thing.” 

While Dwight didn’t want to hear that, he knew it would be rude to say so, just as rude as pointing out that Gad’s shirt was now smelly as well as sweaty. Gad had a normal sense of touch and a functioning nose. Undoubtedly, he knew. “That’s nice,” he said as politely as he could. “Your kids are with Freddy, right?” 

“Yup,” said Gad. “Bram’s babysitting.” 

Dwight frowned. “Are you sure that’s safe?” he asked. “I’m sure Freddy doesn’t speak any Hebrew.” Not that Theo wasn’t the kind of person to try to teach him, but he’d only been in America for a month and settling him into school had taken up most of that time. “And Geula – she’s, uh, still in diapers, right?” 

“We thought of that,” said Sima. “Galil’s fluent, so he’s the translator for both of them. Seriously, it’ll be more difficult for him with Geula. She doesn’t even understand _English_ fluently yet. Forget being understandable when she speaks it.” Both parents chuckled. “And Bram’s okay with diapers.” 

When he first met the Budins, Dwight had thought that Bram _used_ diapers before Boaz and Benny hit him upside the head for it, so maybe he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. “Okay,” he said. “Probably better for them not to be around the noise. Freddy’d probably have a meltdown. He’s still adjusting.”

“Oh, we know,” Sima told him with a knowledgeable nod, which Gad repeated with his head craned around to look at Dwight. “Kids take a while to settle, even when you have ‘em from the beginning. Freddy should do fine.” 

“I’ll tell Theo,” Dwight said. That would actually go a long way towards making Theo feel better about his parenting skills, provided he wasn’t too caught up in worrying to listen. “Later, not tonight.” Theo had been drinking since the start of the party. If Dwight didn’t know that there were also bunch of cocktails and wine downstairs, courtesy of Noah’s light-hearted spying, he would have been concerned about possible cold feet. Nevertheless, he doubted Theo would remember anything he heard or said tonight. 

One side of Sima’s mouth curled up. “Understandable,” she said, and reached over to the mini-fridge closest to her to pull out a bottle. Suddenly, Dwight understood why she and Gad had chosen this corner – smart of them. “Soda?” 

“Think I will,” said Dwight, and took it.

ii.

The food was the only good thing about this stupid party. Oreet liked Bill and Theo okay, but why did Danny have to drag her over here? “Socializing,” he said on the drive over. “You need to socialize, Reety.” Stupid party, stupid _baby_ name. Stupid Danny, who wouldn’t let her bring anything to draw or read.

She dug her teeth into her bottom lip and reached for another one of those mini-cheesecakes that Benny had made. They came in a bunch of flavors, which was nice, and she could kind of drown out all the wedding chatter while she ate. With her mouth full, she drew her legs up so she could sit cross-legged on Bill and Theo’s massive couch. 

Then her brother took the remaining mini cheesecake out of her hand. “Reety,” Danny scolded, “are you sure you should be eating that?” He looked her up and down from head to stomach, especially stomach. _Hypocrite_. “You’ve already had a lot of this stuff tonight.” 

“I’m twelve,” said Oreet. “I’m growing. And I’m hungry.” It was true. She was two inches taller than she’d been six months ago, even if she wasn’t skinny like most of the girls at school. Danny had a way bigger belly than she did and he made such a big deal out of how he didn’t “eat crap.” Didn’t he understand about genetics and stuff? Oreet hadn’t even had that class yet and she already knew more about it than he did, probably. 

Next to her, Caleb put down his knitting. Why he liked sitting next to her, she had no idea. “Yeah!” he said, and sent a dagger glare Danny’s way. “She’s twelve and she’s growing! Just like me! She should have a cheesecake if she wants to.” 

“But you’re,” Danny started, then stopped. He tried again. “You’re...” His forehead creased; Oreet could almost see the brain gears working inside it. He was probably trying to say that Caleb was thin and Oreet wasn’t, like what he sometimes said at home when she said she wanted more dessert like Noah got, but that would sound even meaner with a bunch of people around. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, all huffy, and handed the cheesecake piece back. 

Oreet put it in her mouth and waited for Danny to get back to his conversation with Bill’s boss before she leaned over and whispered to Caleb, “Thank you.” 

“No problem,” he whispered back. His breath really stank. Maybe she could give him a mint cheesecake and see if it would help. “Your brother says a lot of messed-up stuff.” 

“Uh-huh.” She took a striped roll-up cookie, the store-bought, crispy kind with chocolate and hazelnut flavoring inside, from an open tin on the coffee table. “So what are you making?” 

Caleb looked down at the knitting in his lap. The ball of yarn sat securely between his crossed legs, with the piece dangling from his hands. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “I’m trying a new stitch. Right now, it’s a big square. Maybe I can make a big square sweater out of it if I knit some more pieces.” 

“You’re okay, right?” Oreet said. “Danny said you couldn’t knit for a really long time after, um.” Her entire face went hot. What if he went all depressed again because of what she said? Danny would kill her and she didn’t want to do that to Caleb. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” 

Caleb scratched the messy curls on one side of his head. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m…I’m better. I can knit again. But I don’t go to lacrosse with Phil anymore.” He worked his needles and made a few more stitches before he spoke again. “I wish you were at school with us.” 

“Oh,” she said softly. “Thanks.” They _had_ been in school together for a while, but she transferred to a private school over in Concord before fifth grade started. It was Catholic, which Danny had gotten all weird over for a while, but she liked that it was all girls. She got to take electives now, too, and that was cool. “I like my school, but that’s really nice of you.” 

Then a voice carried over to them, louder even than Benny, who was sitting in Bill’s nicest armchair and talking to Bill’s boss and her wife about curry recipes. “ – as long as m’arm!” It was Bill’s cousin, the fat one with a really round face whose name Oreet couldn’t remember. He spoke with a broad English-countryside kind of accent. “And they’re like hand fruit, just hanging there!” He made a wild gesture with his hands – it was probably rude, because Danny sucked in his breath through his teeth with a scandalized look on his face. 

“ _Flim-Flam!_ ” Bill shouted through the laughter. “Stop talking about my fiancé’s genitalia right this instant, or I shall give you an acetone enema.” 

“What’s acetone?” Caleb asked. 

“Nail polish remover,” Oreet said. Danny had a lot of it in the medicine cabinet. He thought it was good for taking stains out of the tile and the kitchen counters. Sometimes, she came home and the whole house smelled like a nail salon. 

“What’s that?” Omer bellowed through the half-a-sandwich in his mouth. “Long as your arm – you got _Ascaris_ , kid?” He adjusted his position on the big padded bench by the curtained window and fiddled with the hearing aid in his left ear. “You can take some mebendazole for that. Easy as pie!” 

Laughter surged again, and now it was Bill who went red. “No, Omer, he hasn’t got parasites,” he called. “I wish he did right now, though. He was talking improperly about a certain part of Theo’s anatomy.” He was sitting a little farther away from the table than everyone on the couch was, but he was close enough that he had to scoot his chair over just a little to put a piece of frosted lemon cake on his plate. Then he took a half-full glass of something alcoholic off the side table next to him and started gulping. 

“Careful, Bill.” The black lady in the chair next to him put her hand on his arm. Like Bill and Caleb, she had some knitting in her lap. Hers was made up of a lot of different colors of yarn, though, and it was really pretty. “You don’t want a hangover tomorrow. He’s being an asshole on purpose, so just let him talk.” 

“Where did Omer learn about parasites?” Caleb raised an eyebrow at Oreet, just like his uncle did. “That’s freaky.” 

“I think he was in Vietnam,” Oreet said. “He probably got some parasites there.” 

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed loudly. “Reety, I’m starting to think you were right. This party isn’t appropriate for you.” 

“I _told_ you,” Oreet said. Danny hardly ever admitted he was wrong, so she was going to enjoy it now. “Can I just please go draw in the guest room or something? The other guest room. I promise I won’t go into Theo’s party or anything.” Danny had tried to make her say _Mister_ Theo and _Mister_ Omer and stuff like that for the longest time, but it didn’t work. All the other kids at Hillel used the adults’ first names like normal people. 

“Uncle Theo has some art supplies,” Caleb said as he leaned over, looking at Danny. “Oreet can do watercolors or colored pencils. I think he has crayons. Are you too old for cra _yons?_ ” On the last part of the word, his voice shot up in a broken yelp. “Oh, God!” He put his face in his hands and shook his head. 

Oreet patted his back. “It’s okay, Caleb,” she said. He was warm even through his two shirts, a T-shirt on top of a thermal. He shivered when she touched him. Was he sick? “You don’t have to be upset.” 

“Aye, it’s only your voice crackin’,” Benny put in from across the table. “Perfectly normal. I had it all the time when I was your age, and now I sing baritone!” 

Bill’s boss’s wife, who was so tall that she had to sprawl her long, skinny legs out in front of her, said “Benny’s right. You should listen to him, Caleb. My wife’s a nurse, so I know all about what is and isn’t normal for boys your age.” The messy, half-done blond bun at the back of her head moved up and down while she nodded. 

“See?” said Oreet, and rubbed Caleb’s back in circles. He grunted something into his knees, but he didn’t sit up yet. “Don’t worry, no one’s gonna laugh at you. Phil’s way more annoying than you when his voice cracks.” He always made what Danny called ‘a huge production’ out of it when his voice dropped or squeaked at Hillel, pounding his chest and yelling that he was a man. It was totally obnoxious. 

“I guess,” said Caleb. He took his head away from his knees and leaned back against the couch, and that was when a pair of hands suddenly covered Oreet’s eyes from behind. 

She gasped. “Hey!” she cried. “Stop it!” 

“Gotcha!” Noah somersaulted off the back of the couch – how had she not seen him or felt him? Danny was right, he was part ferret – and landed next to her, jostling both her and Danny. Danny grumbled and pointedly turned his face away. “How ya doin’, squirt? What’s up?” 

“Don’t scare me like that!” Oreet said, but leaned against him anyway. He put his arm around her. “One of Bill’s cousins was talking about how he saw, you know…” She looked at Danny. It probably wasn’t a good idea to say anything dirty. “Theo’s bathing suit area.” 

The pruny expression on Danny’s face eased up some, and Noah laughed. “What’d Bill say?” 

“He wasn’t happy,” said Caleb. “I wouldn’t be, either. What he said was, uh, pretty gross.” He coughed and grabbed a frosted soft cookie from the coffee table. “So do you wanna draw, Oreet? I can find the art supplies in the kitchen. I’ll even keep you company if you want.” 

Danny tapped his chin. “Here’s an idea,” he suggested. “Why don’t you take Noah with you? Nothing else will keep your brother out of trouble, if you want my opinion. Wandering up and downstairs,” he added, his voice going into a soft, scolding mumble that he used when he started talking to himself. “Drinking God knows what. You’re setting a terrible example!” 

“Beer, Danny,” Noah said with exaggerated patience as he rolled his eyes and playfully made a mock-disapproving face in Caleb and Oreet’s direction. “They’re drinking _beer_ upstairs. You should be more worried about what Bill has down here.” 

“Maybe you’re the drunk one, Danny,” Bill’s boss teased. “How do I know you haven’t been getting into the mai-tais? We should breathalyze you to make sure.” 

Danny’s neck started to turn red. “I am _not_ drunk,” he said. Both Gilly and her wife started laughing. “I’m not! I – I don’t have to prove myself to you!” Oreet grinned and nudged Noah with her elbow, and he nudged her back. “You’ve all seen me. I haven’t touched a drink except water since we got here.” 

“You _say_ it’s water, but it could be vodka,” Noah said, nodding and stroking an imaginary beard. “I’m the expert, you know. You could have PCP dissolved in there and say it’s Alka-Seltzer or something. Couldn’t he, Gilly?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Bill’s boss. _Gilly_ , Oreet mouthed, and repeated the name inside her head so she could memorize it. “He could have acid in that water, or Ecstasy, or really any kind of dissolvable drug. Or maybe he does have Alka-Seltzer in it. Do you have a GI upset, Danny? There are some relatively invasive tests for that.” She winked at Oreet. 

“ _Oreet_ ,” said Danny tightly, rubbing his temples with his fingertips, “why don’t you take Noah and Caleb to the kitchen and draw some nice ponies? Ponies and kittens. You can even draw outside the lines. Wouldn’t you like that? I know I would.” 

Oreet had stopped liking ponies when she was seven, except for the comforter that Noah souped up for her when he started living at home again, and she was way too old to get crap about coloring outside the lines. Who did Danny think he was, anyway? He couldn’t even draw a straight line, and she was already way ahead of everyone else in art class. The teacher had started telling her to just go over in the corner and do her own thing. “Okay,” she said. If she got out of the party and got to see Danny lose his cool at the same time, it was worth it. “Let’s go.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” said Noah, and stood up. 

iii.

The first sensation Theo was aware of was massive pain in his forehead and both temples. “Oh, God,” he moaned, “my head,” and then he opened his eyes. That was a horrible mistake. “My eyes…they’re on fire.” He squinted against the light through the window and slowly shaded his eyes until he could see what was in front of him – and that was Dwight, wearing a pair of briefs, a massive frown, and nothing else. 

“It’s about fucking time,” Dwight said. 

“Whuh?” Theo said, and clapped his hands over his ears. Dwight’s voice was so damn loud that it had to be some kind of crime. “Time for what?” 

Dwight grabbed his wrists and dragged his hands away from his ears. “ _Time to get up_ ,” he said directly into Theo’s ear. Even his beard against Theo’s earlobe hurt. “You’re getting married today and you have a hangover, numbnuts. Up.” 

Theo had seen this before. Dwight was in a mood, and he wouldn’t let up until he got what he wanted. “ _Today?_ ” What day was it? “Dammit, my head.” He rolled over onto his stomach and wobbled up onto his knees. “What the fuck did I do?” he asked. 

“You passed out drunk,” Dwight informed him. “Well, first you went and got your wedding suit to show everyone,” he corrected himself. “Then you puked in your bathroom and threw the suit on the floor. I had to carry you to bed, dick. You owe me.” 

“Done that for you before,” Theo said. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t owe Dwight anything. “My mouth tastes like shit.” Bill had told him that that came from bacteria that multiplied in your mouth overnight and left their sulfur pee all over the place. It tasted more like he’d bitten into a stale corpse, though. 

Dwight put his hands around Theo’s waist, and suddenly everything tilted as Dwight hoisted him up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. His jostling head flopped down on Dwight’s back; it hurt too much to hold it up. “Tough,” Dwight said. “It’s five hours until you get married. I’m putting your suit on you if I have to stuff you into it.” 

“Guh,” said Theo, for lack of anything better to say and the mental fortitude with which to say it. Dwight set him down on the floor, where he wobbled in place. “Tell me Bill’s not gonna kill me.” 

Dwight snorted. “Bill’s drunker than you are. Dinah’s trying to make him look like something other than death. Guess I need to do the same for you.” He held up a glass of something thick, red, and probably poisonous. “Okay, open up.” 

“What’s - _thlk!_ ” Theo’s mouth was suddenly full of something so slimy and disgusting that he had no choice but to swallow it down. Dwight kept the glass in front of his face, and his glare told Theo that he wasn’t moving until all the contents disappeared down his gullet. 

“I’ll tell you when you finish it,” Dwight said, and wow, that wasn’t ominous _at all_. It was, however, threatening. 

Theo drank the stuff as fast as he could, but the taste and texture still covered his teeth and tongue. Gagging, he bent over and clutched his stomach until he was fairly sure he wasn’t about to throw up (although it was a near miss). “What’d you give me?” If he had to guess, he’d say it was probably the contents of one of his sister’s used tampons. 

“Tomato juice and raw egg,” Dwight answered. “Should help your hangover.” 

“Salmonella,” Theo countered. 

Dwight shrugged with one shoulder. “Fuck salmonella.” 

Theo wished he could be that carefree about it, but _no_ , he had to be getting married to Bill, Mister ‘Bugger the Five-Second Rule, That Floor is Covered in Bacteria’ himself. Sometimes, he questioned his taste, and then Bill looked at him and suddenly it was worth it. “Sure.” The noxious mix threatened to come back up again; he sat down hard on the bed and gulped hard. He was never drinking again. 

Dwight bent – even the sun reflecting off his bald head made Theo’s eyes water and his stomach roll – and came back up with Theo’s suit. He’d had to get a new one for the wedding, since he was way too old and way too familiar with Hillel food to fit into the one he’d worn circa 2000. “Time to get dressed,” he said. “Try to help me, will ya? I don’t really want to tuck your dick into your pants.” 

“Picky,” said Theo. Dwight seemed to have forgotten how Theo made him scream the one time they were mutually sleep-deprived enough to think that having sex was a good idea. And speaking of pants, there was definitely something off about the pair on the hanger. Something unfamiliar. “Those aren’t my pants.” 

All of a sudden, Dwight looked guilty. “About that,” he said. “You threw yours into the litter box last night, and Rug – it’d probably be accurate if I said he poopsploded all over them. I went in there to pee earlier and, uh, it wasn’t pretty.” 

Theo didn’t dare risk sniffing the air to confirm. He was already on thin enough ice with his entire gastrointestinal tract. “ _Fuck_ ,” he moaned, and rubbed his forehead with the heels of both hands. It was throbbing even harder than when he first woke up. “Then who the hell’s pants are those?” While he knew that that was grammatically incorrect somehow, he didn’t have the functioning brain cells to figure out exactly how. 

“Dinah’s,” said Dwight. “Take ‘em or leave ‘em. Yours are definitely not surviving this. I put them in the wash, but I think they’re done for.” 

Theo ground his hands harder into his forehead. “No way they’re gonna fit.” 

Dwight brandished them at him in a way that was almost definitely a threat. “ _Take ‘em or leave ‘em._ And we’ll just see. These are dress pants.” He clapped Theo on the shoulder. “Come on, you lush, I’ll help you put these on one leg at a time.” 

The one-leg-at-a-time method turned out to involve Dwight bent down in front of Theo, wiggling the pants up his legs, while Theo leaned on Dwight’s back. “You look like you’re about to blow me,” he said, and snickered. His head throbbed again – not a good idea. “My head…” 

“Shut up or I’ll give you something to whine about.” Well, Dwight would make a shitty parent someday if he and Noah ever got around to bringing a child into their weird home. “Okay, here we go.” Dwight pulled up the pants legs and gave the waistband a few yanks. “Let’s see if these fit.” 

They fit. Fuck, they _fit_. The ass bagged and the waistband almost didn’t button, cutting into the flesh under his navel, but his sister’s pants fit. “Dwight,” Theo said as evenly as he could, which wasn’t even enough to keep his voice from shaking, “Dee’s pants fit me. Kill me.” 

“Quit being a baby. I’m not risking my pants for you.” Dwight bent again and did up the zipper. “I think those’ll hold you until the end of the reception,” he said. “Then I’d suggest you get Dinah some new pants. I have no idea what you’re about to spill on these.” He came closer and leaned into Theo’s space, his eyes narrowing. “You have sleep crap all over your face.” 

“Yeah, just…please tell me you got permission from Dee. _Hey!_ ” Theo protested as Dwight licked his thumb and started scrubbing at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “You’re not my mother, Dwight! Knock that shit off!” 

Dwight poked him lightly in the eye. “Stop complaining. You’re the one who drooled all over yourself. I’m done, anyway.” He picked up the hanger with Theo’s dress shirt on it and unbuttoned it, then took it off the hanger. “Do you wear an undershirt with this?” 

Theo gulped back another sudden attack of nausea that coincided with a stab of pain in his head. “Yeah, top dresser drawer.” He’d tried wearing white shirts without undershirts before, and it turned out that everyone could see his chest hair in the right light (or wrong light, given the situation). “You’re not seriously putting my suit on for me, are you?” 

“You didn’t seriously get piss-drunk, did you?” Dwight mocked. “Arms up.” 

Theo let Dwight put the undershirt and shirt on, and even grudgingly let him button his shirt up for him. His fingers were way too clumsy to do it now. “Thanks,” he grunted. “You’re not as scary as you pretend you are, you know.” 

“That’s why it’s called pretending,” Dwight said. “Can I ask something?” He held up the unbuttoned suit jacket. “Apart from why you’re wearing a regular suit instead of a tux, you lazy son of a bitch.” 

“Yeah.” Theo slid his arms into the sleeves. “And don’t insult my mother.” He sat down on the bed and winced as Dee’s pants dug into his stomach. Sprawling on his stomach took off some of the pressure. “So what’s your question?” 

Dwight sat down next to him and patted Theo between his shoulder blades. “How are you so calm?” he asked. “Noah freaked out before we got married. He kept saying he wasn’t good enough for me and I shouldn’t do it and all that shit. And don’t you remember how much of a mess Dee was before her and Vince’s wedding?” 

Theo thought he probably remembered better than Dwight did. His, after all, was the lap that Dinah had sat on while she cried about cold feet and what if she messed up their taxes and _why_ did she think this was a good idea? But she and Vince had stayed together until death did them part. “I remember,” he said. “I mean…I’m not really the kind of person who freaks out.” 

“So?” Dwight said. “You used to be the Slut of Boston. _No one_ ever thought you’d get married, even after gay marriage got legalized.” He gave a low laugh. “Statewide, I mean. You and Bill were already engaged when the Supreme Court got its act together, right?” 

“Right.” It was June, and he was in England when he got the news. He’d spent an hour talking on the phone with Bill – well, mostly listening to him cry from happiness. “I know Bill and I are good for each other,” he told Dwight, rubbing his eyes. They hurt a little less now. Was it possible that the shit Dwight had had him drink actually worked? “We’ve been there for each other for the good stuff and the bad stuff.” 

Dwight sprawled out on his back, staring at the ceiling. “You really have,” he said. “Especially with that Nazi shit. Bill stepped up to the plate with that.” He stretched his arms out and yawned. “So that’s why you’re Mister Zen, huh? You’re sure you’ll always be there for each other.” 

“You could say that,” Theo said, although he didn’t think that ‘Zen’ would ever be an accurate description for his mindset. It stormed inside his head way too often. He copied Dwight’s stretch and turned his head, which brought his nose to his armpit. “Oh, fuck.” 

“What’s up?” 

“You forgot to put me in the shower, that’s what’s up.” Now that he thought about it, his entire body smelled like booze sweat. He guessed he’d been way too hungover to notice it before, not that he was a whole lot better now. In fact, the smell threatened to bring back the worst of his headache. “I smell like the ass end of a goblin after an all-male goblin orgy.” 

Dwight made a face. “That’s disgusting,” he said, and stuck his face in Theo’s armpit. Just as quickly, he reared back, dry-heaving. It was, Theo decided, _probably_ fake. “Oh, God, you do stink.” 

“What’d I tell you?” Theo said. “You should’ve listened. Now what do we do about it?” Dammit, that was _way_ too loud. He turned over onto his stomach and buried his head in the comforter. 

Dwight pulled him up by his collar, and Theo moaned in pain. “No way am I putting you in those pants again,” he said. “You’ll just have to take off everything above the waist. I’ll wash your pits.” He shook his head and let his breath out in a hiss. “Jeez, the things I do for you.” 

“No whore’s bath,” Theo said into the bed. “I smell too bad. Go ask Bill.” 

“Dinah’s dealing with Bill,” Dwight said. “He’s hungover worse than you.” He sighed loudly into Theo’s ear. “Okay, take ‘em off. Shower time.” 

Theo undid his fly and then gave Dwight his best beseeching look. “I need help.” Seriously, he didn’t think he could take the pants off without serious repercussions for his hangover. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dwight said, rolling his eyes. He quickly stripped Theo with a finesse that Theo could only guess came from undressing Noah when he felt cuddly. “Do I need to carry you to the shower?” 

Theo pouted at him again. “Please.” He would enjoy the pampering while he could get it, even if said pampering came from a grouchy, bald cop who would probably sooner whack his ass with a nightstick (and not even in the sexy way) than do anything tender to or with him. “Wanna pick me up?” He spread his arms out. 

“Fine.” Dwight hoisted Theo over his shoulder again and grunted as he started to walk. “Jesus shit, what the fuck have you been eating, fatty?” 

“It’s muscle,” Theo said. He poked Dwight’s deltoid. “I forge way more than you do. Coffee and donuts too much of a temptation, piggy?” 

Dwight’s immediate response was to dump Theo’s naked body into the tub with as little ceremony as he did everything else. Then he turned on the cold water. “Never use that word around me unless you’re talking about Kosher,” he said as Theo whimpered and tried to curl up. “This is as far as I’m gonna go. Now hop to it.”

iv.

The bathroom at Hillel was a terrible place to beautify anyone. The ceiling sported one fluorescent light that flickered enough to give anyone a headache, both stall doors were askew, a few of the ceiling tiles had mysteriously disappeared over the past few years, and the floor was always sticky. Still, it was the only place in the building that was big enough for Danny to commandeer for the purpose of making Bill Baggins presentable, as big of a job as that was. He _supposed_ it was a worthy use of his time.

“How could you get this drunk?” he scolded as he combed Bill’s hair. The fine-toothed comb had made Bill first wince and then dash into the nearest stall to get rid of some of last night’s liquor, so he’d had to switch to the wide-toothed one. “Were you trying to drown your sorrows? You have no business marrying Theo if your cold feet are this bad, you know.” Theo’s behavior was atrocious at times, but he was still part of the Hillel family and he deserved the best husband in the world. 

“It’s not cold feet.” Bill put his elbows on the bathroom counter and held his head in his hands. Despite the blush and concealer that Danny had carefully applied, he looked utterly sick, even if he’d gone from ‘cancer patient’ to ‘stomach virus’ under Danny’s hands. “I don’t think I should have invited that many friends. And with my cousins…” He shivered. “I’m never having Flim-Flam over to my house again, and Ads was no better.” 

Danny tapped his chin. “Ads? Is that the thin one or the _zaftig_ one?” He’d had a few too many desserts himself after Oreet took Noah and Caleb somewhere they couldn’t bother him. Food, of course, didn’t get him drunk; it could, however, give him a distracting stomachache that made him forget names. 

“You can say ‘fat,’” Bill said against his palms, “but Ads is the thin one. You might recall he was the one who kept trying to make me talk about Theo’s skills in bed.” 

“Oh, _him_ ,” Danny said. It would likely be wise to refrain from saying anything else, as he wasn’t sure he could control his opinions and there was no indication as to how Bill would react if his family’s behavior was corrected. “He’s an interesting character.” He wet the comb under the cold tap and ran it through the wild curls on the top of Bill’s head. There was little enough to be done about the sides apart from removing the tangles, although they would look all right from a distance. 

“That’s one way to describe him.” Bill tilted his head back without being asked so Danny could finish his hair. Well, maybe the drunkenness was just a lone episode in an otherwise rock-steady life. _Everything in moderation_ , Danny thought, _even moderation_. He found that an apt description of life. “How about you? Are you all right?” 

Danny hummed a bit and re-wet the comb. “I’ve had an excellent morning,” he said. “Decorating really clears my head.” The one saving grace of Bill and Theo having no taste in decorations or desire to plan their wedding was that they’d grudgingly “allowed” Danny to deck out Hillel for the occasion (he preferred to think of it as saving their aesthetic, thank you very much). “I still wish you’d let me dress you. There’s so much versatility in a tuxedo. I have no idea why you’re so opposed to tails.” 

“Two reasons,” Bill said. “One, it’s not evening, and two, I don’t live in the world of Mary Poppins – fuck, my head.” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them, and Danny allowed himself one raise of his eyebrow in the mirror. “I don’t think willingness to wear tails is the best determinant of good taste. Can I have a glass of water?” 

Danny took a paper cup off the stack on the counter and filled it from the tap, then gave it to Bill. “Wearing tails is a mark of sophistication,” he said as Bill drank. “I have no idea how you could spend forty-three years as a gay man and not have the foggiest idea of that.” 

“Forty-four,” Bill corrected between sips. Hm. He was perhaps the first middle-aged person Danny had met who didn’t feel the slightest need to fudge their age. Maybe it was a British thing. “I’m not going to have this argument with you. My head is pounding too hard.” 

“Okay, then,” Danny said, a bit miffed. It was incredibly rude to cut someone off. Didn’t Bill know that? “Would you like to hear how I’ve decorated this place?” 

Bill rested his head on his hands again. “Mm,” he said noncommittally. Danny wasn’t stupid, nor was he non-observant, no matter what people said of him behind his back (and yes, he heard that, too). Bill clearly didn’t want to hear it, but that was just too bad for him. Danny had, after all, done him the favor of making him look like something other than a three-months-dead shambling corpse. 

“The social hall is done up in silver,” Danny began. “I got some streamers from the store. Had to sew the fabric banners myself, though.” He tutted and took some hair gel out of his bag. Now that Bill’s hair no longer looked like a bramble bush, it was time for the second step. “You wouldn’t believe how much the fabric cost me at Joann’s. Maybe if you’d given me more than a month’s notice about _where_ you were holding the wedding, I could have gotten a better deal.” 

“We argued too much about a place to rent out,” Bill said. “Then we were making preparations for Freddy, and it just seemed like a good idea to do it somewhere familiar. And the sentiment factor…” 

“I guess that’s something,” Danny conceded. You couldn’t beat the romanticism of marrying where you’d met. He’d choose exactly the same sort of place for his own wedding if he had the chance, but with Brian, he’d had to resign himself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. At least Brian was worth it. “Let’s see, what else have I done? Oh, all the table decorations are silver and gold. I found some fake flowers that weren’t too gaudy.” The real ones would wilt before the reception was even over, and wouldn’t that be disgusting? 

Bill massaged his temples. “You found silver and gold fake flowers?” he said. “I didn’t know those existed.” 

“Oh, they do. It’s a stretch to find ones that aren’t just gray or yellow, but aren’t trashy, either.” He didn’t particularly mind the shopping, even so. It was always a pleasure to spend a few hours in a craft store. Sometimes Oreet came with him if he promised she could look at the art supplies or buy some out of her allowance, despite her room already overflowing with expensive felt-tip pens, charcoal, and artisan paper. He didn’t know what he was going to do with her, now that she’d decided to put on the teenager attitude a few months early. 

“That should look nice,” Bill said. He didn’t sound like he was at all sure. Danny would’ve liked to see _him_ try to deck out the Hillel building on short notice _and_ with meetings every Friday. He couldn’t even do the official decorating before yesterday because of the wedding rehearsal immediately after the weekly prayers and dinner. Omer threatened to pitch a fit if he had to look at “goddamn wedding stuff” before the actual event. 

“It really does,” Danny said with a small smile. It didn’t look too prideful in the mirror, although that could have just been the lighting. “There’s a runner down the center of the aisle between the tables. I thought silver would be too much, so it’s just plain gray. Can you believe the number of relatives you have, Bill? I had to arrange for the tables to spill over into the entranceway!” The doors would have to be wide open and the guests still wouldn’t be able to fully see each other between the rooms. The sacrifices he made. 

Now Bill laughed, a sound that promptly produced a moan. “I’m well aware of how fertile my family is, thanks,” he said. Danny squirted some hair gel into his hands, rubbed it between his palms, and set to smoothing it over Bill’s curls. “Don’t make me look like a gigolo, please?” 

Danny’s eyebrows shot up, but he forced the expression down upon seeing what it did to his forehead. If he got wrinkles from this, it would be Bill’s fault. “How dare you,” he said. “This isn’t New Jersey.” With a purposeful snap of his palms, he worked the gel through Bill’s hair and used his fingertips to tease the curls up. “Don’t get snippy at me for wanting to give you some definition.” 

“Could we not talk about decorating, at least?” said Bill plaintively. “My head is in so much pain.” 

So much pain, his overly-large ass. Danny didn’t doubt that Bill was still in _some_ pain from the hangover, but he could see right through him. Probably at least half of that pain was fake. “What would you like to talk about?” he asked in his cheeriest, most dangerous voice. 

“Oh…the rest of your morning would be fine –“ Bill hissed, cutting off the rest of his sentence, as Danny pulled his hair. Well, could he help it if Bill’s hair was too shaggy to be borne? “What did you do before you got here for your decorating?” 

“Brian stayed over,” Danny said. As always, the mention of Brian’s name soothed his ruffled feathers like a stroking hand down his back. “So that was a pleasant way to wake up.” He wasn’t going to give details of what they had done, of course. That would be impolite as well as lewd. 

“I’m sure. Does he stay over often?” 

Danny began to toss Bill’s curls, using a very similar motion to that utilized in tossing salad. Waste not, want not. “Often enough,” he said. On this particular morning, as sunlight warmed his face, Brian woke him up by sucking and licking both nipples with his wonderfully warm mouth and tongue. _Lie back, bubbeleh. I’ll help you relax_. Brian never teased him for being fat or for being deficient in chest hair; he just loved him, and that was all Danny needed. 

The middle-of-the-night comfort helped, too. Brian hadn’t asked what Mom had done to him – just held him until the day, a few months in, that Danny felt ready to tell him. Now whenever he had nightmares, Brian was there to hold him and say that everything would be all right. 

“Ow!” Bill cried. “You’re pulling too hard!” 

“Oh,” Danny said. “All right, I’m sorry.” So he couldn’t multitask while thinking dirty or mushy thoughts. There were other things he was good at. “I think you’re about finished. Now to get your suit jacket –“ 

The bathroom doorknob rattled, a noise followed shortly by a loud knock on the door. “I gotta go pee,” said Galil. “Who’s in here?” 

“Just a minute.” Danny gave the door a venomous look. Kids these days had no idea how to be polite. He didn’t dare say so, though, because the last time he’d tried to lament the state of millennial youth, Theo had stared at him and wondered aloud how a thirty-seven-year-old could be that much of an _alterkocker_. “Do you need help getting up, Bill?” 

Bill rose from the chair Danny had pilfered from the social hall and knocked it over, clapping his hands against the side of his head and squeezing his eyes shut at the noise. “No. Probably should have.” 

Danny put his bag over his elbow, picked up the chair, and rested the seat on his shoulder to carry it out. There was _some_ muscle under his pudge, at least. No one had ever accused him of being a weakling, although they’d certainly accused him of other qualities (some of which, at least, were true). “I’m just sorry I couldn’t make up translation booklets for your relatives,” he said, opening the door. “Come on in, Galil.” 

“Thanks!” Galil ducked under Danny’s arm and ran into one of the stalls. “I shouldn’t have drank that cranberry juice,” he said from inside. 

Danny held the door open until Bill had put on his jacket and come through and then took his arm, letting the door close behind them and walking him back to the social hall to replace the chair where he’d found it. “Rabbi Fleischer is doing the ceremony in English,” Bill said. He lifted his head and looked around at the decorations, eyes wide and lips slack. “You weren’t joking.” 

“Well, thank you,” said Danny. “I try to do my best.” He put his hands on his hips and assessed his work. The noon sun made Bill look just a bit less corpselike, which he decided he could certainly pride himself on. He’d say so if anyone asked. “An English ceremony, huh? That’s good.” If he’d been invited to the damn wedding rehearsal, maybe he would have been able to find that out for himself, but no, apparently he ‘wasn’t needed.’ Ingrates. 

“Yes, I didn’t want anyone to be confused,” Bill said. “Thanks again for the decorations. And…you know, everything else.” He squinted at the sunlight and squeezed his eyes shut. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m supposed to wait in the kitchen until the wedding. Benny is expecting me.” 

“You do that,” Danny told him. “I’ll finish up here.”

v.

Geula was old enough to walk, but being a flower girl could be a very stressful job, and in addition to all that, she had a flower pig sharing the limelight. Bill wasn’t surprised that she needed her mother’s help to walk down the aisle with her basket. It was really cute, anyway: Sima in her long blue velvet dress stooping to hold Geula’s hand, her daughter in a frilly yellow dress that matched the cape tied around Kosher’s neck.

“Won’t be the last time she walks her down the aisle,” Gad said into Bill’s ear, and sniffled. 

Bill looked at him. “Are you _crying?_ ” 

Gad wiped his red eyes. “Yes, okay?” A few heads turned in the social hall despite the fact that they were in the entrance hall, beyond the doors. “Yes,” Gad said again, more quietly, and scrubbed at his eyes with his hands. “I like weddings, okay? Look at that. That’s my kid. And the pig’s adorable.” 

“ _No!_ ” Geula screeched over the music (the traditional wedding march, courtesy of Ads, a few years of adult piano lessons, and a portable keyboard). “Bad piggy!” Kosher had stuck his nose into her basket and was loudly chewing a mouthful of marigold petals. “ _Ima!_ ” she wailed. 

“Shhh, _matoki_ ,” Sima said urgently, her voice hushed, even as Kosher plopped his curly-tailed arse down on the runner and began to munch on more petals. “We’re in the middle of the wedding.” 

Geula sat down, too, and shook her fat little finger at Kosher. “Bad Kosher!” Defiantly, she took a handful of petals out of the basket and shoved them in her mouth. Bill held his breath, expecting a tantrum, but he remembered as she continued to eat that marigolds had sweet petals. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing for this situation. 

Sima scooped Geula up in her arms, took her basket, and threw the rest of the petals down the aisle herself. “Sorry, everyone,” she said, sounding like either she or her voice was about to snap at any second. “Technical difficulty. Keep going.” 

Gad groaned next to him. “Great,” he said, “my kid’s the one who disturbs the wedding.” _Not so proud of the flower-girl job now, is he?_

Laughter rippled through the wedding guests. Bill knew that Theo was waiting elsewhere, but he thought he could hear his fiancé’s deep laughter, too. Ads even stopped the wedding march long enough to snicker as Sima carried a wiggling Geula to one of the tables and sat her down firmly in her booster seat. Geula was whimpering, a sound that didn’t progress to out-and-out crying, to Bill’s great relief (and that of his still-aching head). 

“Go, go!” someone whispered loudly, and suddenly, Freddy ran into view from somewhere beyond the doors. He carried a pillow, which Bill knew held the wedding rings, and wore a little blue suit with a red clip-on tie too big for him. With short, nervous-looking steps, he started up the aisle, and Ads began to play again. 

Danny had had a hand in the choice of pillow, too, Bill saw. A silver ribbon of the same fabric used in the banners bisected the pillow diagonally, a sprout of ribbon running from the middle to tie the rings in place. Thank God for that, otherwise the rings would surely have fallen with Freddy’s stumbling, yet Bill couldn’t help but be proud enough for his vision to blur. “Freddy is so brave,” he whispered to Gad. 

“Yeah,” his groomsman said, “well, at least _your_ kid is behaving himself.” 

Bill was tempted to correct him – even when honorifics were taken into account instead of the truly complicated family ties, Freddy was a nephew, and he’d had parents of his own for four and a half years – but let it go instead. Freddy reached the podium where Rabbi Fleischer stood under the _chuppah_ that Bill had spent four months knitting and proffered the pillow. 

Rabbi Fleischer smiled, patted Freddy’s head, and pointed towards one of the tables. Freddy looked all too eager to finish his part of the ceremony as he ran over and sat next to Phil and Caleb with an audible _flump_. “William Baggins,” the rabbi said, his voice carrying over the music, “come forward.” 

“Here we go,” Gad said. He took Bill by the arm and began to walk them forward – a good thing, since Bill was sure he would just stand in place, shaking, if he didn’t have anyone to guide him. “Come on.” Ads stopped mid-verse and began the wedding march again, and Gad brought Bill through the doors and onto the runner. 

He would have preferred, Bill thought as he passed person after person at the tables on his way up to the makeshift altar, to have Bandy and Peggy or Ads escort him, but Ads was needed for the music and anyway, Lobelia and Olly would pitch a fit if he chose family members other than his “closest living relatives” to do the deed. Gad was an acceptable compromise from the Hillel family, and besides, he didn’t think a nicer bloke could be found. 

Ads paused the song for a split second to wave and wink at Bill when he passed, and then started playing again without a hitch. Bill winked back at him and shuddered at a particularly loud chord, which Ads undoubtedly played at that volume on purpose. Then he was at the altar, Gad pulling him gently into place next to the rabbi and standing next to him in a groomsman’s position. 

“Theodor Derensky,” said Rabbi Fleischer, “Theodor _ben_ Tuvia _v’_ Rakhel, come forward.” The pronunciation startled Bill, but then he remembered that the Hebrew pronunciation was a fair bit different from its English bastardization. “ _Bill!_ ” 

“Hm?” Bill focused his eyes on the rabbi’s face, which had suddenly turned from pleasant to thunderous. “What is it?” he whispered back. 

Rabbi Fleischer pointed up at the chuppah. “Is that what I think it is?” 

Bill’s cheeks flamed. Oh, so the pattern was visible after all. He’d told Theo that knitting that damn [fornicating deer pattern](http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fornicating-deer-chart) into the edge of the chuppah was a bad idea, but did Theo listen? Of course he didn’t. He’d insisted that it would be funny until Bill finally agreed. “Blame Theo,” he said in a low voice as out of the corner of his eye, he saw Theo emerge from the door to the kitchen, Dinah at his side, and begin to walk towards the altar. So _that_ was why Benny had kicked him out of the kitchen half an hour ago to go stand with Gad. Lucky Theo, with that shorter walk. 

“Try not to look at it,” he said as quietly as he could. “It was Theo’s idea.” 

Rabbi Fleischer, thank God, declined to reply. Bill didn’t think this was a hill he really wanted to die on, not that he would die of anything but embarrassment anyhow. Once Theo and Dinah had come to their assigned spots, he cleared his throat and said in a ringing voice, “Thank you all for being here today to witness the joining of Theodor Derensky and William Baggins in marriage. I know that some of you have traveled a long way, and all of you are probably hungry, so let’s make this ceremony simple.” The guests laughed again, less nervously than they had at Geula’s stunt. 

“First,” he continued, “I’d like to recite the hundredth psalm from the Torah.” He cleared his throat again and said, “A psalm of thanksgiving: shout for joy to _Adonai_ , all the earth. Serve Adonai with gladness. Enter His presence with joyful songs.

“Be aware that _Adonai_ is God,” Rabbi Fleischer continued. Bill sneaked a look at Theo, who obviously hadn’t had the benefit of Danny’s so-called beautification. _His_ face was still green. “It is He who made us, and we are His, His people, the flock in His pasture.” 

Theo smiled back at him. It was a soft smile, tender and protective, and it warmed Bill’s chest as the afternoon light coming through the window behind the altar warmed his face and hair. “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, enter His courtyards with praise.” _I will always be thankful for you_. Whatever sort of fate had brought them to each other, whether for a joke or for the _beshert_ destiny that Theo had spoken of the day after he took Bill home, had to be praised. “Give thanks to Him, and bless His name. For _Adonai_ is good, His grace continues forever, and His faithfulness lasts through all generations.” The rabbi’s chin moved up and down with each sentence, and stayed down as he concluded. 

Bill heard a few sniffles from their guests and focused on those closest. Dane, sitting in the front row, was visibly and audibly crying into his napkin, and his daughter – seated on his lap – looked disgusted. First Gad, now Dane; what was it with redheads and crying? Some sort of defect in the parasympathetic nerves going to the lacrimal glands, perhaps. 

“May the One who is blessed and mighty above all bless these grooms,” said Rabbi Fleischer, breaking Bill’s thoughts. “Now, to represent the seven spheres of each other’s soul that Bill and Theo will bind to, each groom will circle around the other seven times.” He nodded to Bill, and Bill moved into position next to Theo and began his steps. 

He went slowly, but his head still spun and the room blurred around him into a visual cacophony of silver and gold, and a black whirl where Theo stood before him. On the fifth go-round, he reached out and grabbed Theo’s hand, pausing for a moment to steady himself. “Are you okay?” Theo whispered. 

“Yes,” Bill said. “I’m fine.” His vision problems alleviated for the moment, he completed his last two circles and unsteadily walked back to his place. Rabbi Fleischer nodded to Theo now, and his fiancé (oh, he’d have to stop thinking of him that way, since they’d be _husbands_ in about fifteen minutes) started to circle around him. 

He closed his eyes. Theo’s warmth so close to him gave off the feeling of a brick wall rising around him in spirals. Theo would never let a damn thing hurt him; Bill knew it deep down. It was strange, he knew, that he wasn’t nervous either about flubbing things or about the possibility of Theo losing his footing and crashing into him. There was nothing that would stop him from marrying this man. 

“I will now recite the betrothal blessing,” Rabbi Fleischer said. Bill opened his eyes. This had been a sticking point with Theo, since as he said, ‘it’s incompatible with the fact that it’s 2015 and we’re both men.’ They’d ended up going with the Schwartz version off the Internet, which was a lot less offensive for all concerned. “You abound in blessing, _Adonai_ our God, sovereign of the universe, who has forbidden us to distress others through intimacy and has commanded us concerning the concentration of _kiddushin_ , and who accompanies consecrated couples to the wedding canopy. We praise you, _Adonai_ , who sanctifies the people Israel.” 

A few people in the audience mumbled “Amen,” although the rabbi hadn’t called for it. Bill grinned. It was the sort of blunder he could see himself making in a wedding situation, much like the incident Theo had told him about when, not paying attention during Dane’s wedding ceremony, Dwight had shouted “ _L’chaim!_ ” – ‘to life’, something shouted out during a drinking session – instead of “ _Mazel tov_ ,” or ‘good tidings,’ when Dane and his wife completed their wedding. 

Rabbi Fleischer reached down to the podium shelf and drew out a pre-filled wineglass, which Danny had insisted on under his own personal ‘the ceremony has to go as smoothly as possible or I’ll pop a gasket in front of everyone’ doctrine. “The blessing over wine,” he said, and said a very short prayer in Hebrew that Bill hadn’t quite been able to understand, even after weeks of hearing Theo say it. “And now, Bill and Theo will exchange rings and vows.” 

Dinah came forward and untied the ribbons keeping the rings on their pillow. She gave Bill’s, a thinner band for the purpose of easier cleanup after work, to Theo, and then dropped Theo’s thicker ring into Bill’s palm. “Love you,” she said, and kissed Bill’s cheek, then went back to her place. 

Bill gulped. _Now_ the nerves were hitting him. “Bill,” the rabbi prompted. He swallowed again and took a few steps forward in front of the podium, watching Theo do the same. 

This was the only Hebrew that Theo had wanted to keep in as meaningful, and this one, Bill had practiced day and night. He was sure his accent was execrable, but at least he could be sure he wasn’t about to say something offensive by mistake. “ _Harei atah m’kudash li b’tabaat zo k’dat Moshe v’Yisrael_.” Oh, thank God. He took the hand that Theo offered and slipped the ring onto its proper finger. 

“ _Harei atah m’kudash li b’tabaat zo k’dat Moshe v’Yisrael_ ,” Theo repeated, only it sounded so much better coming out of his mouth. He put Bill’s ring on, so gently despite his wonderfully enormous fingers, and then caught Bill’s hand in his as his bright blue eyes met Bill’s…well, far less gorgeous ones, likely. Then came a throb in Theo’s head so strong that, even without Theo’s sucked-in breath and eyes squeezed shut, Bill almost would have been able to see it ripple across his forehead. “Ffff _screw it_ ,” he said. “Bill?” 

“Yes?” 

“I was going to talk about how much I love you and everything, but I’m so hungover that I think my esophagus is trying to stage a revolt.” Theo spoke with his eyes closed, but he opened them for the next words. “I’m wearing my sister’s pants. I got no shame.” Someone, probably Dwight, hooted with laughter. “Bill, I hated you the first time I met you. All I can say is I think I must’ve hit my head too hard on my desk, because I love you more than anything. I’ve written –“ Bill held his breath and prayed _please don’t let him be hungover enough to reveal that_ “ – a dissertation and I still can’t do words to tell you how much I love you. So I won’t try.” 

A lump rose up in Bilbo’s throat, hard and obstructing. How could he still breathe with those words, the most honest he’d heard from Theo or anyone, in his ears and his brain from now on? “Theo,” he said hoarsely, and felt a tear drip down the side of his nose. 

“I love you, Bill,” Theo said. “That’s all I was gonna say. Dwight made me drink tomato juice with raw egg in it this morning, so maybe I have salmonella and that’s what’s making me feel weird.” 

Raw _egg_? “Then Dwight’s going to get it!” Bill said. Now the noise from the audience was an ‘oooh,’ as well as laughter, and the speaker was definitely Noah this time. “Raw egg? That’s irresponsible! I ought to…” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly to force himself to calm down. This was neither the time nor the place. “Theo,” he said, “I can’t say I really felt anything but moderate annoyance for you until you showed up in – in the emergency room with your nephew and then behaved like a five-year-old when you had your vaccinations.” He’d almost been in the US long enough to stop nearly saying ‘A &E’ instead, the operative word being ‘almost.’ “I’ve been slathered with makeup so you can’t see it, but I’m about as hungover as you. If simple words are the best, then I’ll only say this: that patient who told me that this place was an interactive museum may have been trying to get my goat. Driving here was still the best decision of my life.” 

Theo squeezed his hands. “You mean it?” 

Bill squeezed back. “I do. And that’s all.” 

“Those were,” Rabbi Fleischer began, and then took an uncomfortably long pause. “Those were very heartfelt vows,” he finally said. “I’ll now recite the traditional seven blessings.” He glanced at Bill, then Theo, and Theo let go of Bill’s hands to move back to his original spot. Bill did the same. “We praise You, Adonai our God, ruler of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine.” 

Dinah poked Theo in the side. “You better not have ruined my pants,” she hissed. “They’re a loaner.” 

“Yeah.” Theo scratched his side. “About that. The waistband’s kind of shot.” While he spoke softly enough that Bill could hear Rabbi Fleischer speaking (and it was likely that no one could hear Theo unless they were really straining), the rabbi still gave the siblings a dirty look without missing a beat. 

“They’re my nicest pants!” 

“ – who creates us to share with You in life’s everlasting renewal –“ 

Theo shaded his eyes with one hand as the sun shone into his eyes and poked Dinah right back with the other. A bit belated, true, but Bill could still appreciate it. “Then you shouldn’t have given ‘em to Dwight.” 

Dinah’s eyebrows drew together as she pointed to Bill with her thumb. “I was busy taking care of the lightweight over there. I didn’t pay attention to what he grabbed – he just said he took a pair of my pants out of the guest-room closet!” 

“You kids quit mumbling up there!” Omer shouted. “I can’t hear a damn word you’re saying!” 

“ - _the sounds of joy and happiness_ ,” Rabbi Fleischer said in a voice raised very pointedly. Both Theo and Dinah fell silent. Bill was just glad _someone_ was telling them not to embarrass themselves, albeit a bit obliquely. “The voice of loving couples, the shouts of young people celebrating,” and here he rolled his eyes, “and the songs of children at play. We praise you, Adonai our God, who causes lovers to rejoice together.” 

In the very pregnant silence that followed, one of the children in the audience stifled a burp and a few other people laughed. Bill could see Ads holding a hand over his mouth, so one of those was probably him. Wonderful – if Omer wanted to hear what Theo and Dinah were sniping about, then everyone else likely wanted to as well. He’d never hear the end of questions. 

“Our ceremony is about at an end,” said Rabbi Fleischer. Whatever annoyance had raised his blood pressure to understandably nuclear levels had left his voice. “Bill and Theo, it’s time for you to take part in what may be one of the most-loved traditions at a Jewish wedding. Freddy, will you come up here, please?” 

“Freddy?” Bill asked Theo. “I didn’t know he was meant to come up here again.” He hadn’t at rehearsal, and after his delivery of the rings, he hadn’t seemed too eager to repeat his performance, either. 

“I didn’t know this was gonna happen, either.” Theo shrugged. 

But there Freddy was, believable or not, scrambling up to the altar with two wineglasses in his hands. “I’ve got them, Rabbi!” he said, smiling from ear to ear. Bill could have burst with pride. Freddy had every right to be pleased with what he’d accomplished today. 

Rabbi Fleischer held out his hands and took the glasses as soon as Freddy brought them to him – he was proud of Freddy, yes, but Bill couldn’t help letting out a relieved breath when the glass was out of Freddy’s hands. “Good job,” he said. “You want to stand over here by your uncle Bill?” 

Freddy nodded vigorously and took Bill’s hand. Bill squeezed his little hand back and watched Rabbi Fleischer wrap each of the wineglasses in a cloth napkin. “For those of you who don’t know, this is a traditional part of a Jewish wedding ceremony,” he said. “The groom, or grooms in this case, steps on a wineglass to symbolize a couple of things. One is the hope that the marriage will last as long as the glass stays broken, and the other is the idea that with each happy marriage, the world is repaired a little more.” 

“Oh, _lovely_ ,” Bandy said. Bill saw her nudge Peggy and clasp her hands together. 

For the first time, Rabbi Fleischer responded to something an audience member said. “You’re right,” he said. “It _is_ lovely, and I’m honored to carry on such a long-standing tradition. But first, I’d like to make some remarks.” 

Theo folded his arms. Bill was tempted to do the same. He hoped this wasn’t about to be a reprimand. A hangover he could take, but not a lecture on his wedding day. 

“Today’s ceremony was a little rocky,” the rabbi said. “Still, hungover or not –“ 

“That’s my fault,” Boaz said loudly. “I brought the beer!” 

Rabbi Fleischer rolled his eyes. “Whoever’s fault it was, the fact is that it happened. So hungover or not, you two have pledged your lives to each other in the traditions of Theo’s people. Bill, I know you haven’t converted, but I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that you’ve proven yourself an honorary Jew. May you have long lives and a happy marriage, and I wish you the best.” He put the wrapped glasses down on the floor, one in front of Bill and the other in front of Theo. “Now, to let off steam with a little pun, step on it.” 

Bill held Theo’s gaze and nodded. “Ready?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Theo said. “On three. Three, two, _one_.” 

Bill slammed his foot down on the wineglass and felt it break into pieces while Theo let loose with an even bigger stomp. A cheer of “ _Mazel tov!_ ”, deafening and congratulatory, came up from the audience, except for a roared “ _L’chaim!_ ” from Dwight. Theo chortled, and now Bill knew that this one was on purpose. 

“All right, all right!” said Rabbi Fleischer over the din. “Kiss already, you two.” 

Theo did him one better. He grabbed Bill, put his arm around the small of his back, and then actually _dipped_ him into the most intense kiss he’d ever given him in public. Bill opened his mouth to let Theo’s tongue inside and he would have let it go on for as long as humanly possible if he hadn’t heard a few people start making uncomfortable noises in the audience. Too late, he remembered that there were children present. 

He broke away and wiped his mouth. “Sorry!” he said. “Theo, let’s go greet the nice people.” 

Theo gave him a wicked smile and squeezed his arse, then ran ahead of Bill to the front table where his family sat. Phil and Caleb stood up and gave him an enormous group hug. “Why didn’t he ask if anyone wanted to say why you shouldn’t get married?” Caleb asked with a pout on his face. “I was gonna say that you’re my baby daddy!” 

“You wanted to get me arrested,” Theo said. “Great wedding present, Caley. Dane, are you crying again?” 

Dane wiped his face with his sleeve. “You’re _married_ ,” he said in a watery voice that matched his wet face. “I can’t believe this finally happened.” 

At that, his daughter, who seemed to have inherited her mother’s more tameable brown hair instead of Dane’s indescribable mess, jumped off his lap. “You’re embarrassing me, Dad,” she complained. “You shouldn’t be crying. You’re forty!” 

Her brother, who _did_ have Dane’s hair, pulled his finger out of his nose. Oh, the things children got up to when they didn’t think anyone was looking. Phil and Caleb were the exception; Bill had seen them running after each other when they were a bit younger, shrieking about mining nose gold. “You’re seven, Nono,” he said. “Does that mean you should be crying?” 

“ _Nina_ ,” she growled at him. “I’m gonna kill you, Thayer _Gerhard!_ ” 

It was to his credit that Thayer didn’t explode. “Stop it!” he said. “Quit being a baby. I’m gonna go to the bathroom before the food gets here. You can find me when you’re ready to be mature.” And with that, he walked off. Dane was right; he really was tall. 

Dane’s wife snorted. “I think that’s a sign I say that too much,” she said. “Congratulations, Bill and Theo. I’m happy for you two.” 

“Thank you so much,” Bill told her. She impressed him. For someone so even-tempered, she certainly did get along with Theo. “I think Thayer’s got the right idea. Theo? Let’s have a bit of a walk so Benny can get the food on the table.” He took his _husband’s_ arm. God, how weird. “Shall we?”

vi.

The air inside the janitor’s closet, not that there was any janitor to do the jobs they all had to take turns doing or to walk in on them now, was hot and moist. Dee had one leg up on a box of industrial-sized sponges and the other – Boaz didn’t know what she was doing with the other. Just as long as they could keep fucking like a couple of rabbits, he wouldn’t care if the rest of the building fell to pieces while they took some time alone.

“Been too long,” Dinah panted. She squeezed around him and Boaz’s eyes helplessly shut. “ _Touch_ me, Boaz!” 

“Where?” He wanted to touch her all over. She was so hot around him, fire-hot, and through his condom, he could feel how dripping wet she was. His Dee could come all down his balls and his front itself and he’d be happy as a clam. 

She arched her back a little ways and braced her hands on the cinder-block wall. “Nipples,” she grunted, and pushed her breasts up towards his face with her cupped hands. Even tall as she was, he’d have had to bend over to pay attention to them in the position the two of them were in. Her courtesy was much appreciated. “Suck ‘em.” 

“Gladly,” he said. It was a wrench to get even that much out. The acrobatics she could do, now, this was just unfair, and her little nips were deep brown and rock-hard in her flushed, sweating breasts. Least he could do was oblige her. Biting back another cry as she wiggled on his cock, he bent his head down and sucked a nipple into his mouth, then bit the wrinkled skin and eased any hurt with a circle of his tongue. Sweat rolled down his forehead and the sides of his face, and his eyes stung from the salt; a press of his forehead to the lovely valley between her breasts took care of that. 

Dinah let go of the breast he hadn’t been working on and pulled hard on his hair. “Do that again!” A shiver ran through her and he could feel the flesh of her hips wobbling against him where he slid and out of her. 

She probably didn’t expect a reply, so he didn’t try to give one. It would have just come out as nonsense, anyway. He lifted the neglected breast and teased the nipple a bit with his mustache, which got just the groan he wanted. Then he sucked hard and swiped at the flesh of her breasts with his thumbs where they disappeared into each armpit. Touching her there always got her hot. 

Her breath puffed out hot against the top of his head and she jerked in place with a loud moan so that he almost slipped out of her. “Shh!” Boaz said. Bram, bless him, was minding the door outside, but this closet wasn’t soundproof, more was the pity. The only saving grace was that they were about as far away from the social hall as they could get, sequestered just off the little office that Omer claimed when work had to be done. 

“ _You_ shhh,” she retorted. 

“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, and mouthed her nipples a bit more. The muffled sound of her moan told him that she’d put a hand over her mouth. That was hotter than he’d expected in a way he didn’t really want to deconstruct. He’d never gotten any kind of weird jolly before from the idea of getting caught. Could’ve been Dee. _Had_ to be Dee, he decided when she squeaked at the next touch of his tongue. It was like in the films, when the hero and his lady had their forbidden love where no one could find out or it’d be death to both of them, only this was hot, steamy, romance-novel sex if he did say so himself, not love. 

He worked on her breasts a bit more until they’d flushed up as pink as they ever got. “Want to come?” he asked, face in her cleavage again. “I’ve got hands. You’ve got a - _oh, shite_ …” Whoever said that condoms made you feel less was a bloody liar. Probably an Englishman, them and their prudishness and all. 

Dinah bent herself forward again into their previous position, and Boaz followed, taking that as a fine opportunity to kiss her. Upright against the wall, she pushed down on him and drove him deeper. “Rub me,” she said into his ear. He didn’t need to ask where. It was the most arousing thing in the world when she made demands in that voice of hers. 

He stuck his hand down between them and parted her pubic hair to find her clit with the very tip of his middle finger. With all the motions and the stretch inside her, it was pressed up to the top of her cunt and it was harder than her nipples. Boaz took his finger away, which made her whimper, and stuck his finger in his mouth both to get it wet (chafing was the worst and he didn’t want to hurt her) and to taste her. “Mmmmm,” he sighed in pleasure. 

She hooked her arms around his neck. “Don’t fucking stop!” 

“Wasn’t…plannin’…” He resumed his thrusts and slid his finger down as deep as he could into the cleft of her vulva, stroking and teasing her clit and getting as much wetness on his finger as he could to make his touch more slippery. Her pulse throbbed through her clit, and he could feel it all the way through his hand. 

Dee spread her left leg farther away on the box, grinding against his cock and finger both and letting out a throaty whimper. Then she gasped into his ear, “ _Coming_ ,” and she spasmed around him at the same time as she sank her teeth into his neck. That would be a bruise. 

Boaz took hold of her hips, licked her earlobe a few times, and prepared to finally relieve that wonderful pressure building up in his cock and ballocks, which were probably swollen as hell from fucking for…how long had they been fucking for, anyway? Good old Bram would know. He shook his head and thrust, then again and again, almost _there_ …

The door to the closet flew open. Boaz squinted in the light and Dinah stopped where she was, which threw him into the nearest wall and made his head ring where it hit the cinder blocks. “Oh, _fuck_ all,” he cursed, “what in –“ His vision blurred and went first double, then momentarily black, but another squint or two revealed who was standing in the light. It wasn’t good.

There stood Dane’s sister, with her eyes – the same bright blue as Theo’s – widened in shock. Her hands were frozen in place around her face, palms forward, and if not for the fact that her breathing was audible, she could have passed for a statue. “Shit,” said Dinah, sounding strangled. “This is…really bad.” 

“Can say that again,” said Boaz. He could barely feel his mouth moving. Oh, he’d stepped in it. This was _very_ bad. Was this woman the type to blab about what she’d seen? If she was sniffing around by a random janitor’s closet, there had to be something sneaky going on in her head. And what was her name, anyway? Sammy, Tammy, something like that, maybe? He could maybe placate her better with a name to call her. 

Dinah stumbled away and off the box. Thankfully, she didn’t take his cock with her, but it did slip out. He could feel the cold air shriveling his stiffy almost by the millisecond. A bite to the inside of his cheek was all it took to stifle a whine. “Tammy,” Dinah said, “uh, this is a bad time. Were you looking for the bathroom?” She cast around wildly, her eyes darting in all directions, and finally grabbed a heavy plastic tarp off the shelf to hold in front of them both. It wasn’t at all comfortable. 

“Just walking around.” Tammy’s expression and voice were completely unreadable. Boaz swallowed hard. “I’ll get out of here.” She shook her head and tucked some of her hair, lighter in color and duller in tone than her brother’s, sort of brownish, behind her ears. “Have fun in there.” 

Boaz yanked the door closed with a slam as soon as she disappeared, then remembered Bram a second too late and opened it a crack again while Dee dropped the tarp. “ _Bram_ ,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even, “why the smeggin’ hell didn’t ye warn us?” 

“ _Lo katvah hi moda’ah_ ,” said his cousin acerbically. 

“Yeah, _todah rabah_ , arsehole.” Boaz rolled his eyes and slammed the door again, this time for good. The bare bulb protruding from the closet ceiling was suddenly emitting way too much heat. 

Dinah leaned against the wall, eyes closed. “Why’d our guard fail in his duties?” 

“Insufficient warning, according to him,” said Boaz. “I guess gettin’ up and blockin’ the door didn’t occur to him. Might’ve not even been suspicious. Bram looks scary – everyone lets him get away with murder.” 

She turned her head and pressed the side of her face hard into the cinder blocks. “That was _embarrassing_ ,” she mumbled. “I knew Dane had to be right about her. Jesus, you didn’t even get to come or anything.” She held up her hands in an apologetic gesture and glanced at him with the one eye that was pointed in his direction. “Can I make it up to you?” 

O _ho_ , that was an idea. As long as she wasn’t too shaken to do anything of her own free will, he was all for a bit of help. “What’d y’have in mind?” he asked, then looked down to check. Yes, the condom was still on his cock. If she wanted to fuck again, at least they could reuse the thing. Environmentally sound or something like that. 

Dinah rolled her head to face him and tapped two fingers against her lips. “I was thinking maybe a blowjob,” she said. “Not on my knees, I don’t think. But that box will probably support me, so I could sit down and lean forward a little and…” She wordlessly finished the sentence by wiggling her tongue. 

His brain shorted out, but the effect was momentary. “That works!” he said cheerfully. Dee’s voice could make even the IRS instructions sexy. This was so much better. “Want me to take the condom off, or…” 

She sat down on the box and scrunched up her mouth, staring at his cock. “Nah, keep it on. I don’t think tasting the inside of my cunt is gonna kill me.” 

_Those_ were the magic fecking words. Boaz groaned and pinched his thumb and forefinger around the base of his cock so he wouldn’t go and embarrass himself before the fun started. “A’right. What do ye want me to do, then?” 

Dee licked her lips. “Just get over here. I’ll take it from there, hon.” 

Bow-legged and light-headed from all the blood whooshing back into his erection, he did as she said. And just as she said she would, she leaned forward, adjusting her position, and took the tip into her mouth. 

“Oh, God!” Didn’t matter how many times she did this. It was always magical. “God, _yes_ , Dee,” he rasped, and fisted a hand in her loose, sex-frizzed curls. She let out a laugh, which had the effect of creating a lovely rumble around his cock. He had to close his eyes after that. 

It didn’t take long after that. While she wasn’t fond of deep-throating on the grounds that it made her gag, which he understood, she was damn good with her mouth by itself. With the urgency of avoiding being caught again in the back of his mind, it was – by his estimate – only a few minutes later that he was hitting the wall with one hand and swearing in English, Hebrew, and Gaelic all three. 

Dee sucked him all through his orgasm and then leaned back with a grin on her face. “Well, my neck hurts,” she said, and rubbed the back of the body part in question. “You’re hot, though.” 

Boaz wiped his sweaty face. “That a professional assessment, Dee?” 

“Don’t ask me,” she answered. “I’m not a professional blowjob artist.” Standing up, she stretched and then picked her dress up off the floor, which made the tarp rustle. “We should probably get back before everyone hears what we’ve been doing.” 

“No guarantee of that,” Boaz said. “We still don’t know if your cousin’s a talker. And I don’t care if you’re a professional, Deedee, you’re still an artist.” 

“She’s _barely_ my cousin.” Dinah pulled her dress over her head and rolled her eyes. “Pull up your pants.”

vii.

Freddy poked his food with his fork. It was good, but the name confused him. “This stuff is odd,” he said. Auntie Bandy sometimes said that about Auntie Peggy’s cooking when he was living with them, back before Uncle Bill and Uncle Slomo – no, he said his name was Uncle Theo and Slomo was just his middle name, like Arthur and Took were Freddy’s middle names – brought him here to live in a very cold place. “Why do you call it _corn_ beef? There’s not any corn in it.”

“ _Corned_ beef,” Uncle Bill said. He cut a piece of one of his potatoes. Freddy had already eaten all of his because they were so good. “It means it’s been cured. That means soaked in salty stuff so it cooks on its own.” 

“Oh,” said Freddy. The corned beef _was_ very salty. He’d had to drink a lot of water already. “Can I have more carrots, please? And potatoes?” 

Auntie Dee took his plate. “I can go get them for you, sweetie,” she said, and got up to go to the table with all the food set out on it. Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo had been giving her very funny looks ever since she came to the table with Boaz, who said Freddy didn’t have to call him Uncle Boaz. Uncle Theo started to say something when they sat down at the beginning of dinner, but Uncle Bill put his elbow in his side and he stopped. 

“Don’t fill up too much, Freddo,” said Uncle Theo. His plate was empty, too, but he’d had lots and lots of seconds, even though Uncle Bill told him to _knock it off_. Freddy didn’t know what Uncle Theo was supposed to knock off. “We’re gonna cut the cake in a minute.” 

Freddy had to clap his hands. “Oh! Is it ice cream cake?” Cousin Dane said it was, but Freddy wasn’t sure if he believed him. Danny said that you couldn’t have a big ice cream cake because it would make a mess. 

Uncle Theo took another bite of corned beef just as Auntie Dee came back with Freddy’s plate. “Yup. Different flavor for every layer. What do you say to Aunt Dee?” 

“Thank you,” said Freddy. Uncle Bill said that being cheeky was rude after the first time. “Thank you, Auntie Dee.” She’d given him just enough potatoes – not too much, not too little, like in the Goldilocks story. He picked up a carrot and bit into it, and smiled when it turned out to be sweet. 

Uncle Bill looked at Uncle Theo. “Benny’s bringing out the cake,” he said. “Let’s go cut it before it starts melting, shall we?” 

“He is, and let’s do it,” said Uncle Theo. He put his napkin on the table and got up, taking Uncle Bill’s hand. 

“He looks horrible in my pants,” Auntie Dee muttered, and took a potato off Freddy’s plate. He didn’t say anything. In the loo, Caleb told him that his mum was having a hard day, so maybe she deserved a potato that wasn’t hers. 

She didn’t look like she was making a funny. “He’s wearing your pants, Auntie Dee?” Freddy asked. “Why?” 

Auntie Dee growled. “Nothing you need to worry about, Freddy,” she said, and took another potato. “Hey, look at that cake, huh? Is it the coolest cake you’ve ever seen?” She snorted. “I crack myself up.” 

Freddy didn’t know what she was talking about, but the cake was _huge-normous_. “Oh! It’s really big!” It was all colorful, too. He couldn’t see any ice cream, just frosting and maybe biscuit crumbs, but all the layers had different colors of frosting and there was a statue of two men on top that looked a little like Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo. “Can I have a lot, please?” 

“I bet Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo will let you have as much as you want,” said Auntie Dee. She touched the top of his head, like Uncle Theo did. That was probably because she was his sister. Frodo wished he had a sister, but cousins were nice, too. “Just try to be responsible. If you eat too much, it’ll make your tummy hurt.” 

“Tummyaches are bad,” Freddy agreed. He watched Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo go up to the cake, looking up and down all the layers. Uncle Theo gave it a thumbs-up, then picked up a big knife and cut a piece out of the bottom layer. “What kind of ice cream is that?” he asked. The inside of the cake was white with brown bits, but the outside was light orange. 

Auntie Dee stroked her chin and looked hard at the cake. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s either cookie dough chip or chocolate chip. Those are real crowd-pleasers – oh, there they go.” Uncle Theo took a forkful of cake and put it in Uncle Bill’s mouth, then Uncle Bill did the same thing for Uncle Theo, who licked his lips and kissed Uncle Bill’s cheek. 

“All right, all of you children come up here,” said Uncle Bill loudly. “I’m going to cut some cake for you first. Freddy, Phil, Caleb? Galil, you can bring some cake back for your sister if she doesn’t want to come up.” 

“ _Cake!_ ” Geula said. She wiggled in Uncle Gad’s lap. “Want, _Aba!_ ” 

Uncle Gad put her down on the floor. “Okay, _matoki_ , go with Galli and – oh, he’s already up there. Freddy, do you mind holding Geula’s hand?” 

“Okay,” Freddy said. Uncle Gad had a nice red beard and he let Freddy braid it on Friday nights. Geula sometimes screamed a lot, but Uncle Gad and Auntie Sima were nice, so Freddy would take Geula up for them. He got out of his chair and took Geula’s hand, which was sticky. “Come on, Geula. Let’s get cake.” 

“Ooh,” said Geula. She put her thumb in her mouth and let Freddy walk her up to the cake table, where the older cousins already were. 

There were a lot of plates of cake already cut, but Uncle Theo had his hands out in front of Phil, who was trying to grab one. “Hey, no, Freddy gets the first piece,” he said. “He’s done such a good job adjusting…hey, Freddo.” He picked Freddy up and kissed his cheek. “You like chocolate chip ice cream?” 

“Yes!” Auntie Dee was right, then. “A lot, please! But not too much, so I don’t get a tummyache.” 

Uncle Theo set Freddy back down, and Uncle Bill gave him a piece of cake. “Enjoy it,” he said, and kissed Freddy’s forehead. The uncles were doing a lot of kissing today. “I’ve got to cut enough for everyone now. Go on back to your seat and eat, love, you don’t have to wait for the rest of us.” 

Freddy kissed Uncle Bill’s cheek back before he could stand back up, then went back to his seat. “It’s chocolate chip ice cream,” he reported to Auntie Dee. “Do you want a bite?” It was polite to offer, that’s what Auntie Peggy said. In Michel Delving, everyone shared everyone else’s food all the time. 

She shook her head. “It’s okay, sweetie, I’ll go get my own.” 

“I’ll watch him, Dinah,” said Uncle Gad. “We’ll have some fun, won’t we, Freddy?” He picked up his fork and poked it into Freddy’s cake, then ate the bite he took and closed his eyes with a smile. “Wow. I don’t know where they got this cake, but if it’s Benny’s cooking, he outdid himself.” 

Auntie Dee got up, and Freddy scooted into her empty seat so he could be next to Uncle Gad. “You can have some if you want,” he said, and ate a bite of the cake. “Cold!” The ice cream made his teeth hurt, but it tasted so good that he had to take another bite. The icing was good, too, and so were the biscuit crumbs on the outside. They tasted like Oreos. “I like cake, Uncle Gad.” 

“I don’t think there’s a person alive who doesn’t like cake,” said Uncle Gad. “Oh, hey, here come my wayward kids. Galli, Geula, sit down and eat.” He patted his lap. “Geula, come sit on _Aba’s_ lap again. I’ll help you with the ice cream so it doesn’t melt on your dress.” 

Freddy knew Uncle Gad was just going to eat Geula’s cake. Grown-ups could be very plain about what they wanted sometimes without saying it at all. He shrugged and ate more of his cake, which turned out to really be a big piece; he got full before he could finish all the ice cream part, but he did finish the icing part and the cake bits between pieces of ice cream. 

“Freddy, hello there!” someone said. 

Freddy swallowed the icing in his mouth and turned in his chair so he could see. “Hello, Cousin Olly,” he said, and got up to hug him. 

Cousin Olly, who was very fat, bent down and hugged him right back so that it was like hugging a teddy bear. “How have you been, my lad?” he said. “Quite an eventful month you’ve had, moving to the States. Are you settling in all right?” 

“Yes,” said Freddy. “Uncles got me a cat and his name is Carpet, and I’ve got my own room and I go to kindergarten where Cousin Galil goes to school. Uncle Bill cooks, but Uncle Theo doesn’t cook, and we go to Hillel on Friday night to be with all the Jewish people. There’s good food at Hillel, too.” 

Cousin Olly laughed. “Someone’s a true Baggins,” he said. “I do believe you’re enjoying yourself. I’m very glad to hear it. Now why don’t you say hello to –“ 

“ – Cousin Lobelia,” Freddy finished. Cousin Olly didn’t have to finish what he was saying for him to know because his wife was standing right behind him with a great big frown on her face, tapping her foot. “Hello, Cousin Lobelia.” Uncle Bill said Cousin Lobelia wanted to adopt him before he and Uncle Theo decided to do it, but Freddy couldn’t see why. She was awful and he didn’t think she liked children, and her son Louis was awful, too. 

“Those two aren’t cutting that cake right at all,” said Cousin Lobelia. Her voice was sour like a lemon. “It’s going to collapse on them, and then where will they be? They won’t be able to say that no one saw it coming.” 

That didn’t make any sense. If Cousin Lobelia thought the cake was going to fall down, then she needed to tell the uncles about it, not just stand there and be horrid. “How are you, Cousin Lobelia?” Freddy asked as politely as he could. “Did you have a good plane?” 

“Our _flight_ ,” she said, “was long and difficult. There was no one to pick us up at the airport for twenty minutes and we almost had to take a taxi. Have your uncles got any idea how expensive taxis are? I suppose they don’t. Your Uncle Theo throws about money like he’s Croesus, but it’s going to come crashing down on him, mark my words.” 

Freddy felt his lips tighten. Cousin Lobelia said the cake was going to crash down and Uncle Theo was going to crash down, too. Didn’t she have anything nice to say? “I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time,” he said, because it was important to be a good host. “Do you like the food?” 

Cousin Lobelia breathed out noisily through her nose. “Dreadful,” she said. “ _Irish_.” 

Something boiled hot in Freddy’s belly. He jumped up out of his seat and brought his foot down as hard as he could on Cousin Lobelia’s shiny black shoe. “Don’t be horrid about the Budins!” he shouted. Benny was Boaz’s brother and Boaz was like an uncle and the food was _good_. You couldn’t insult his uncles, even if you were a nasty person already. “I hate you!” 

Everyone was looking at him. No one was talking anymore. His face got hot and his lips started to shake, and he ran out of the room as fast as he could. The loo was safe, so he ran down the hall, feeling his shoelaces come untied and flap against the floor, and locked himself into a stall. The whole loo was empty and he sat down on the toilet seat, then drew his legs up onto the seat to hug his knees. Uncle Omer would probably be mad if he left shoe marks because he said he was the one who bleached the toilets. Maybe Freddy could do that for him this week. 

For a while, he just sat and cried and rested his wet face on the knees of his trousers. It was very loud in the loo when he gulped and sniffled and he hoped no one was going to come in. He wanted to be _alone_. Everyone probably hated him now for saying he hated Cousin Lobelia. You weren’t supposed to hate people, and you especially weren’t supposed to say it. 

If he had to go back and live in Michel Delving again, away from the uncles who let him sleep in their bed when he had nightmares about Mummy and Daddy and the auntie who let him hug her legs and the new cousins who were better than the old cousins, he thought he might die. 

But no one came in. Maybe they were packing his things up to make him leave already. Freddy sat up and wiped his face with loo paper so he wouldn’t be disgusting and untidy like a bad little lad. Then he left the stall and looked out the loo door to make sure no one was there, and when no one was, he ran across the hall into a dark little room and curled up under the nice desk inside. It was small and dark like a cave, and he knew he’d be safe there. It was like Mummy that way. 

There was a click a little while later, and Freddy sat up as light streamed in under the crack between the solid front of the desk and the floor. “ – absolutely out of control,” said a lady. Cousin Lobelia, oh, no, oh, _no_. Freddy chewed on his lip and tried to breathe quietly in case she found him and wanted to do bad things because he was naughty. “Whoever authorized letting those two adopt him should be brought up on criminal charges.” 

“It’s not just him,” said another lady’s voice. It was an American voice. Freddy lay down on his belly and scooted right up to the edge of the desk so he could look under the crack. Cousin Lobelia’s shoes were black and shiny, but this lady’s shoes were red and very shiny. He’d seen them before when people were coming and he had nothing to do except look at everyone’s shoes, but whose were they? He tried to remember. “I’m afraid for any child in their care. I don’t care if it’s temporary. What about those poor nephews of his? Theo is nothing but a bad influence and your cousin isn’t any better.” 

“That could be grounds for imprisonment, you know,” said Cousin Lobelia. “Provided we can prove anything, of course. I agree with you – Bill is a reprobate. Nothing good came of that marriage between generations. Something went wrong in his head. And your Theo is nothing but a monster.” 

“He’s not mine,” said the American lady. Now she sounded mad. Freddy frowned and chewed on his lip, and… _oh_ , she was Cousin Dane’s sister! Now he remembered. She was telling her friends not to step on her shoes when she came in. “We’re second cousins. That’s barely related at all. I wish we weren’t. Maybe then he would have seen sense and appreciated what I could offer.” 

Cousin Lobelia tutted. “We’ll have to agree to disagree,” she said. “I think this is enough time to lick my wounds. You have my card, yes? Email me as soon as you can. We’ll work something out.” 

“Sure. Enjoy the rest of your day, if you can.” Dane’s sister’s voice sounded sweet, but it was sweet like cough medicine. There was a terrible bitter sound under it. “We should probably leave, anyway. There’s nothing for me here. Almost wish I hadn’t been invited.” 

The light turned off, and he heard their shoes going _click, clack, click_ on the hard floor in the hallway. 

Freddy breathed hard for a long while. His breath made a fog against the plastic pad under the desk and his cheek started sweating, though, so he peeled his face off the pad and sat up while he rubbed it. _They called Uncle Theo a monster_ , he thought, and hugged his knees again, shaking all over. He didn’t know what a roprate was, but it didn’t sound good. And they wanted to take Uncle Theo and Uncle Bill away from him – he’d have to go live with Cousin Lobelia because everyone said Auntie Bandy and Auntie Peggy were too old to have children. 

“ _No_ ,” he said. It sounded odd under the desk. “I won’t live with Lobelia!” He scrambled out from under the desk and got on his feet. The only way to keep anyone from taking him away from the uncles was to tell everyone, including the – no. He couldn’t tell the uncles. They had headaches because they drank too much of their strong juice and he didn’t want to make them worse. 

But who could he tell? 

_Phil and Caleb_. Phil and Caleb would listen, and Auntie Dee would, too! Freddy clenched his hands into fists and put them on his hips, something that Mummy used to do when she wanted to give herself courage, and walked out of the office and down the hall. 

Something bumped into him and it was Galil. “Hi, Freddy,” Galil said, looking down at him. “What’s up?” 

“I’ve got to tell you something, Galli,” Freddy said. Galil was Uncle Gad’s son and he was nice. He would listen. “Can I whisper?” 

Galil bent down and brought his ear close to Freddy’s mouth. It was a big ear and there were red hairs all around it. “Tell me,” he whispered. 

Freddy cupped his hands around Galil’s ear and spoke into it as quietly as he could. “I heard Cousin Dane’s sister talking to Cousin Lobelia,” he whispered. “They want to hurt Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo.” 

“How?” 

“I don’t know how. Cousin Lobelia said she needs to send her an email.” Freddy wished he knew how to send an email. He could send one to Cousin Lobelia and see what she was doing with Cousin Dane’s sister and stop it. Uncle Theo got emails all the time. 

Galil stood back up. “Are you sure?” 

Freddy nodded. “Yeah.” He didn’t have the thing where people heard voices from people that weren’t there, like on telly. “I want to tell people and stop them. What do I do now?” 

Galil took his hand. “Come on, let’s go tell people.” He started down the hall and Freddy followed, running to keep up. Galil’s legs were so much longer than his. “Who do you want to tell? Ms. Adler-Derensky?” 

Ms. Adler-Derensky was Auntie Dee. Freddy remembered that because it was a very long name and he had to practice lots and lots. “Yes,” he said. “Auntie Dee and Phil and Caleb and other people, but I don’t know what other people.” 

“What about your aunts?” Galil asked. “The ones with the weird names, um, Bandy and Peggy. They know everyone in Bill’s family, right? They’ll probably know what to do.” 

The aunties! Why didn’t he think of that? Oh, he was so stupid. “Yes!” Freddy said. “I want to tell the aunties. Are they still here?” They were old, so maybe they had to go back to their hotel and take a nap. 

“The old ladies?” Freddy nodded. “Then they’re still here,” Galil said. “I think they were dancing. Man, I bet they break a hip or something.” 

“Auntie Peggy already broke her hip,” Freddy said. “I didn’t see it because I wasn’t growing in Mummy yet, but she’s all better now.” She wouldn’t be able to pick him up if she wasn’t better, and that would be very sad. “Can we go talk to her now? And Auntie Bandy?” 

Galil nodded and brought him back into the room where the uncles got married. There was music playing now, and someone had blown up a lot of balloons, which were all stuck to the ceiling. Freddy shielded his eyes with his hand to look for the aunties, then ran over as fast as he could when he found them. “Auntie Bandy? Auntie Peggy?” 

Auntie Bandy snorted and sat up taller. “Yes, what? Yes. Freddy, darling!” She beamed at him. “What’s going on with you? Do you want to sit on Auntie’s lap?” 

Freddy raised his arms so she could pick him up. The wonderful thing about Auntie Bandy was that she had a very strong lap, so she could hold him even though he was a big lad, and he never had to ask her. “Can I whisper?” 

“Yes, love. That would be best. Auntie Peggy is sleeping, you know.” Auntie Bandy pointed at Auntie Peggy, who had her head down on the table. “Now tell Auntie all about it.” 

Freddy cuddled up in her lap and put his mouth next to her ear. “I heard Cousin Lobelia talking to Cousin Dane’s sister and they want to take Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo away because they shouldn’t have got married. And they said I’m out of control. And Uncle Bill is a roprate. And they’re going to send emails.” 

Auntie Bandy went silent for so long that Freddy wondered if she’d fallen asleep like Auntie Peggy. He was just about to snap his fingers to make her wake up when she said “Are you sure about this, Freddy?” 

“Yes!” he said. Why did everyone keep asking if he was sure? Did they think he was lying? “I went in the loo and then I went in the other room and went under a desk and, and then they came in and talked. I heard Cousin Lobelia’s voice. Cousin Dane’s sister has red shoes.” 

Auntie Bandy lifted her chin and looked across the room. Freddy followed her eyes and saw Cousin Dane’s sister sitting at a table with one foot across her other knee. She had three friends sitting around her. That was silly – they should have been dancing. “Hm. Have you any idea of that one’s name, Freddy?” 

“No, I forgot, Auntie.” There were lots of people to remember for the wedding. 

She put Freddy down on the floor and stood up very slowly. “Oh, my creaking bones,” she muttered. “Those lasses will answer for what they’re trying to do. Freddy, darling, will you find your Cousin Dane and bring him to me? I’m afraid I can’t walk across all that floor.” 

Freddy hugged her around the legs. “Okay.” Then he looked for Cousin Dane; he was still in his seat at one of the front tables next to his wife, Cousin Liz. Freddy sighed with relief and picked his way across the space between blocks of tables to take his cousin’s hand. “Cousin Dane, Auntie Bandy wants to talk to you, please.” 

“Huh?” said Cousin Dane. “What about? Did my kids do something to her?” 

“No. She wants to talk to you, please. Is that okay, Cousin Liz?” 

Cousin Dane’s wife, who had on a very pretty green dress that was made out of that soft stuff Uncle Theo had some pajamas made out of, shook her head with a smile. “No, honey, go ahead. I’ll stick around. Dane?” She poked her husband in the arm. “We need to get going soon. Nina’s about to have a sugar crash. Tell your sister –“ 

“But it’s _about_ your sister,” Freddy broke in. “It’s very important.” It was rude to interrupt, but he’d say sorry after he helped save the uncles. 

Cousin Dane’s furry red eyebrows went up to his hair. He looked at Cousin Liz and she looked back at him. “Oh,” he said. “I should’ve known. Come on, Freddy, let’s go see about damage control.” He took Freddy by the hand. “Lead on.” 

“I know what damage control is,” Freddy said as he showed Cousin Dane to the aunties’ table. “Uncle Theo does it when he talks to people he doesn’t like. Uncle Bill says it’s good because Uncle Theo needs to keep his tenner.” 

“I bet he does,” Cousin Dane said, and snorted. Then he stopped in front of Auntie Bandy and made a little bow, which Freddy thought was quite nice of him. “Hi, Bandy. I heard there’s been some kind of problem with my sister.” 

Auntie Bandy laughed. “You can bet your arse there is,” she said. “An understatement, really. Freddy here overheard her plotting with a very unpleasant niece of mine to drive a wedge between Bill and Theo, something about one or both of them being reprobates.” 

Cousin Dane’s mouth dropped wide open. His eyes went big and round. “Jesus,” he said. 

“Now normally I wouldn’t worry,” she went on, “but Freddy is in the process of being adopted and their marriage is still new. Those two seem to have got enough brains between them to do some real damage if they put their minds to it, wouldn’t you say?” 

“I’d definitely say,” Cousin Dane agreed. “Yeah, I knew her getting an invitation was a mistake. That’s my sister Tamara. Everyone calls her Tammy. You want me to round them up?” 

Auntie Bandy stroked her chin. “I think that would be best,” she said. “We’ll meet here in a minute. You bring your sister, I’ll bring my niece, and…Freddy, why don’t you bring your Uncle Theo? There’s no need to make a commotion with both of them, and he’s the fiercer.” Freddy nodded hard. “Good lad. Now go on. Peggy, wake up.” 

Freddy heard Auntie Peggy snort behind him as he went to Uncle Theo, who was talking to a tall, thin man with long white hair like an Elf in the storybooks. “ – regional archery finals,” the man was saying, “otherwise he’d be here. He was disappointed to miss the…who’s this?” 

“I’m Freddy,” said Freddy. “Who are you?” The man’s eyes were very blue, but not as blue as Uncle Theo’s. 

“Randall _Green_ wood,” said the man, and shot Uncle Theo a hard look. “I’m your uncle’s work colleague. So you’re Freddy? I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

Uncle Theo touched Freddy’s shoulder. “Just good things, I promise,” he said. It looked like his head didn’t hurt as much as it had earlier, because his face wasn’t as green and he didn’t look like he was about to throw up anymore. The man’s name was Greenwood; maybe he took away sickness that made people green. “What’s up, buddy?” 

“Cousin Lobelia and Cousin Tammy are _plotting_ ,” he said, using the word that Auntie Bandy had used. It sounded important, like a spy movie. “They don’t want you and Uncle Bill to be married and they don’t want me to be here. Auntie Bandy and Cousin Dane said I need to get you.” 

“Oh, shit, of course they are,” said Uncle Theo. Freddy bit his lip so he wouldn’t laugh at the bad word. It meant poo, he knew. Phil and Caleb had explained it to him last week. “Okay, so where am I going?” 

Freddy pointed. “Where the aunties sit.” It looked like Cousin Dane was already bringing Cousin Tammy back, but he couldn’t see Cousin Lobelia yet. Auntie Bandy was probably yelling at her. Good. She couldn’t say horrid things and get away with it. “Can I go with you?” 

“Tell you what,” said Uncle Theo, “you go with Randy to his table. He and his wife are a couple feet away. You can hear everything and nobody’ll think to blame you, okay? Randy, you okay with doing that?” 

“Sure,” said Randy. “Come on, little pal, you can come meet my wife. Alice will like you.” 

Randy’s wife was skinny and tall like he was, and she had light yellow hair. By the time Freddy came to their table and met her, he could see Cousin Lobelia at the next table. Auntie Bandy was dragging her by the arm. “Al, let’s keep it down,” Randy whispered to his wife, who had said her name was Alice. “Pretend to talk or something so no one notices. Freddy needs to hear what’s going on.” 

“You’re being pretty accommodating for a guy you hate,” Alice whispered back. “Ready to reconsider your position on Dr. Derensky yet?” 

Randy rolled his eyes all the way around. “Let’s talk about it later,” he said. “Enjoy the dinner theater while it lasts. I do like seeing Derensky make an idiot out of someone.” 

Freddy turned his face a little way toward the aunties’ table and strained to listen. “Child Protective Services is going to hear about the potential for a false call,” Uncle Theo said. He wasn’t joking at all now; his voice was so serious that it was a little scary. “Dane will back me up. You two were overheard and your behavior speaks for itself.” 

“But,” said Cousin Lobelia. 

“I,” said Cousin Tammy. 

“We won’t be telling you who divulged it,” said Auntie Peggy. “Suffice it to say the walls have ears here.” 

“Do they really have ears?” Freddy asked Randy, touching his hand. His skin was so soft, much softer than either of the uncles had on their hands. 

Randy smiled. “No, it’s just an expression. You hear that, Alice? He sounds just like Luukas.” 

“ _Shh_ ,” Freddy said. “Sorry. I want to hear.” 

“No,” Alice whispered, “we get it.” 

Cousin Dane was shaking his finger in his sister’s face. “You’re never coming near the rest of this family again,” he said, and his voice was as low and hard as Uncle Theo’s. “Get out of here. Go back to the hotel, get your stuff, and _get out_.” 

“I’ll be escorting you out, you and Lobelia both,” Auntie Bandy said. “Will it be necessary for me to have Theodor escort you as well? He’s far stronger than I am.” She’d lifted him with one hand before, so Freddy didn’t think that was true at all. Uncle Theo _was_ very strong, though. 

Cousin Tammy had her arms drawn in on herself. She shook her head. But Cousin Lobelia put on a snarly face and straightened up in place. “It’s your right to have who you will at your wedding, of course,” she said, “but I have to say that this is in extremely bad form. Lying about your own cousins! The rest of the family will hear about this.” 

“Blow it out your ass,” said Uncle Theo. Freddy almost laughed at that, but covered his mouth with his hand instead. “Get out, and Tammy, you take your friends with you. I’m sure they’re in the same hotel room as you. Never should’ve invited either of you people. Lobelia, your husband hasn’t done anything wrong as far as I know, so he can stay.” 

Then Auntie Bandy took each of the ladies by the arm and marched them out towards the door – really marching with her legs going up and down like a rod in a butter churn. Auntie Rosa had let Freddy watch her once when she churned butter. “Theo,” said Cousin Dane, “I –“ 

Uncle Theo shook his head hard and Cousin Dane closed his mouth. “Dane, I was the one who invited her, not you,” he said. “Bill doesn’t have to apologize for Lobelia, either. No more fuckin’ apologizing.” He caught Freddy’s eye. “Freddy, you did good. Are you okay?” 

Freddy got down from his chair and hugged Uncle Theo around his waist. “Maybe they’re not bad,” he said softly. It was his fault that two people had just had to leave. Maybe they hadn’t even been planning anything. 

“No, they’re bad,” said Uncle Theo. “Whatever you heard them saying? Their behavior completely backed that up. I thought I saw Tammy say something to Lobelia after you ran off. Good job on that, by the way.” He gave Freddy a thumbs-up and then scooped him up into his arms. “She had that coming.” 

“ _Theo!_ ” There was Uncle Bill, stomping over from somewhere. He had bright blue icing on his shirt. “You’ll never believe who Omer’s plus-one is.” 

Uncle Theo put Freddy down on a chair and scratched his head. “Omer actually has a girlfriend?” 

“No, it’s the facilitator from his PTSD group,” said Uncle Bill, “and the part you’ll never believe is that he’s the lunatic who set us up. Do you know what he brought us? A box of fireworks!” He pointed to a really old man dancing by himself. The old man tipped his pointy gray hat and winked. “He said he was bringing the facilitator, but for God’s sake!” 

Uncle Theo chortled. “Are we kicking him out, too? He’s not a wedding crasher.” 

“No.” Uncle Bill gritted his teeth. It sounded like he had rocks grinding in there. “I suppose that solves the mystery of how he knew about you. Bugger my life. Sorry, Freddy.” His cheeks went pink. “Are you all right? I know Lobelia did – wait, where’s Lobelia?” He looked around the whole room. “Theo, what happened?” 

Uncle Theo kissed his forehead. “I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Two angry guys yelling at people doesn’t work at a wedding.” He knelt and took Freddy’s hands. “Hey, Freddo, I bet it’s time for group dancing. You want to see what it’s like to get hoisted up on a chair?” 

He did. And with all the cousins holding up their chairs, Freddy didn’t fall off even once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit goes to [lumateranlibrarian](lumateranlibrarian.tumblr.com) for the surprise bit at the very end. 
> 
> Glossary  
>  _bubbeleh:_ sweetheart (Yiddish)  
>  _matoki_ : sweetheart (used for kids, var. 'motek', Hebrew)  
>  _alterkocker_ : old shit (Yiddish)  
>  _zaftig_ : plump, heavy (Yiddish, but used politely in English when one doesn't want to say 'fat')  
>  _lo katvah hi moda'ah_ : she didn't write an announcement (Hebrew)  
>  _todah rabah_ : thanks a lot (Hebrew) 
> 
> Don't look up _Ascaris lumbricoides_. Just don't. You will regret it. 
> 
> Information that I used for Bill and Theo's wedding ceremony comes from [here](http://www.reformjudaism.org/jewish-rituals-wedding-day) and [here](http://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/new-erusinbetrothal-blessing). I think there might have been another site, but I forget what it is. 
> 
> As always, I can be found at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr.
> 
> And by the way, the drink that Dane thought was a bad idea last chapter is very good indeed.  
> 


	20. Stay Me With Flagons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone attempts to make a classic American holiday fun for a British kid, and ends up going overboard.

Cross-legged on Freddy’s bed, Dane took the opportunity to discreetly pull out his wedgie while Theo put the finishing touches on Freddy’s Halloween costume. “Now you understand that you have to breathe in this thing, right?” his cousin said. “I mean it, Freddy. Every few houses, you open the hood strings. I don’t want you to suffocate.” 

“I can breathe in it,” Freddy protested. He tightened the strings on the hood of his orange parka and peered out, wide-eyed, from the tiny aperture left for his face. “See?” His voice came out muffled, just like that of the character he’d wanted so much to emulate for Halloween. “I can breathe!” 

“Still.” Theo put his hands on Freddy’s shoulders. “You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t let yourself breathe. Promise me?” 

Freddy put his arms around Theo’s neck. “Promise, Uncle.” 

Carpet jumped up onto the bed and wandered into Dane’s lap. Dane scratched him between the ears and got a very loud purr for his efforts. “I can’t believe how much he looks like Kenny McCormick in that,” he said. Thayer’s old parka was still way too big for Freddy, but that just added to the verisimilitude, what with how fine-boned Freddy was. “Thayer will like that. Mind if I take pictures?” 

Freddy waddled over to the bed – not a surprise, since he was bundled up in the parka plus a pair of snow pants – and levered himself up next to Dane, then undid his hood strings. “I’m South Park for Halloween, Cousin Dane,” he said, smiling. “I get to be Kenny! But I’m not going to die. I promise.” Carpet stretched out a paw to touch Freddy’s thigh. “Hello, Carpet.” 

“Remind me again what episode Phil and Caleb let him watch,” Dane said. “Or was it episodes?” 

“A few of them,” Theo sighed. “Just part of the first season, thank God. Freddy just heard the bleeps, not the swears. Dee and I were mad enough about him seeing all the, uh, the D-E-A-T-H.” 

Freddy flopped down onto his stomach and began to scratch Carpet in earnest. “That spells death,” he said. “I know how to spell. Uncle Theo, translate me!” He pulled his strings, hunkered down into the hood, and mumbled a string of impressively Kenny-esque gibberish in which Dane could make out no actual words. “What did I say?” 

Theo’s lips trembled. It was an impressive effort not to laugh, and Dane would applaud him for it if he could. “Buddy, the point is to say actual words in there,” he said. “I can’t translate _mmf mmmm mmf mm mrmmm mm_.” Carpet’s eyes flicked to Theo and he let out a perfunctory meow. “See, Carpet understands.” 

“But I can’t understand what Kenny says,” said Freddy. “It isn’t his special language?” 

“Nope.” Theo kissed the top of Freddy’s orange-nylon-covered head. “He says some pretty nasty things in English. It’s a good thing you didn’t understand them.” He joined in the petting of Carpet with a few scritches to the cat’s belly. “Hey, what do you say we go downstairs and wait for everyone to get here?” 

Freddy cocked his head. “With Phil and Caleb?” 

“Phil and Caleb are still getting into their costumes, I think,” said Theo. “Quite frankly, they’re lucky they get to go trick-or-treating at all. If they try to get you to watch South Park again, I want you to say no.” 

“Nice parenting, Theo,” Dane said, and stood up, transferring Carpet from his lap to one of his arms so he couldn’t find himself on the receiving end of death by cat. Carpet would probably hate him forever if he fell on the floor just as he was settling in for a nice nap. “Come on, Freddy, let’s go wait downstairs. Who all’s coming again?” 

Freddy stood, too, reaching up to take Dane’s hand. Something in Dane’s chest melted a little. Kids were the best. “I’ve got three friends,” he said. “There’s Sam and Pippin and Meredith. She says we’ve got to call her Merry. They’re nice.” 

“And Freddy spilled the beans to them about what he saw,” Theo said in an undertone as they went down to the entryway. “I think that’s the only reason their parents are all letting them get in on the costume theme.” 

“It was a good episode,” said Freddy brightly. He squeezed Dane’s hand. “It was the one where Grandpa Marvin wanted to die and he tried to hang himself and we saw the one with pinkeye after that. It was really zombies, not pinkeye. Kenny died on Halloween. You’ve got really big hands, Cousin Dane.” 

Dane squeezed back. “Thanks, kiddo. Yours are really small.” He had to wonder how much of that was stunted growth from all the stress after his parents died. Whatever the case, he knew Bill and Theo would feed him up until he grew as big and strong as he ever would be. “They’ll grow, I bet.” 

The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” said Theo, and vaulted down the last few steps, then opened the door. “Hey, you guys. Come on in.” 

“Thanks!” said Noah, and took Theo up on his offer, Dwight close behind him. True to what Theo had predicted he’d do (and that meant Dane owed him ten bucks, _dammit_ ), he wore Kosher in a baby sling around his neck. Kosher, for one, looked contented to be there. “Dane, do you mind taking a look at Kosher? He has a piggy cold.” 

“Yeah, I know,” said Dane. “He doesn’t look too bad. I don’t think you have to worry.” He came closer and petted Kosher’s head. “Hi, Kosher. Not feeling too good? Noah, if you’re really worried, just take him to the vet.” 

Noah set his jaw. “I’d rather take him to you,” he said petulantly, hugging the piglet against his chest. “Just to make sure he’s gonna be a hundred percent okay. I don’t _really_ think he has anything serious, but…you never know.” Kosher snuffled. “Oh, poor boy.” 

“We’re handing out candy in exchange for your amateur vet services,” Dwight put in. “Theo said Bill needs a break.” 

“He’s always home alone to hand out candy,” Theo said. “I usually go over to Phil and Caleb’s neighborhood to trick-or-treat with them. This neighborhood…” He swept his arm out. “It skews kind of old and cranky.” 

“So remind me why you’re taking the kids around here again?” Dane asked. He peered into Kosher’s eyes, which didn’t look particularly watery or pink. This was definitely just a piggy cold. 

Theo adjusted the fuchsia leather circle bobby-pinned to his hair. “I didn’t say we’d be sticking to this block,” he said. “Agh, stupid kippah. I hate wearing these things.” 

“You’ve got to, Uncle Theo,” Freddy told him. “You’re Kyle’s dad. He wears a jacket and a shirt and a kipper.” 

“ _Kippah_ ,” Theo corrected. He shrugged. “Well, I guess we all have to make sacrifices. Wish I could be _Kenny’s_ dad, though. Mr. McCormick’s pretty much trailer trash, so he never has to wear anything except a dirty shirt and a baseball cap,” he added, turning to Dane. “Sorry, don’t know if you’ve seen it.” 

Freddy tugged on Dane’s hand. “Trousers,” he said urgently. “He’s got to wear trousers, too. You can’t go around without trousers. The bobbies come and take you away.” 

“Smart kid,” said Dwight. “Guess we know someone who’s never getting an indecent-exposure citation, right, Freddy?” 

Letting go of Dane’s hand, Freddy gazed up at Dwight and nodded, although the confused look in his eyes suggested he didn’t understand half of what Dwight just said. “Yes,” he said. “Can I feel your head, Mr. Dwight? It’s shiny.” 

Much to Dane’s surprise, Dwight scrunched up his mouth, said “Eh, why the hell not,” and knelt down. Freddy immediately began to rub his palms in circles over Dwight’s bald scalp. “You like that, Freddy? That’s good luck, you know, rubbing a bald head. Noah does it all the time when I’m cooking. Mine’s going to give you luck into next year.” 

“You’re letting him get away with way too much,” Dane said, and gave Kosher a last once-over (including a pat on the flanks). True to his habit, Kosher licked his hands. “Oh, good boy. Noah, this is totally just a cold. If it looks like it’s progressing to piggy pneumonia, take him to the vet. That means if he’s not better, like, day after tomorrow…” 

Noah was already nodding before Dane finished his sentence. “Definitely,” he said. “I have the vet on speed-dial.” 

“He does,” Dwight said, and stood back up. “Hey, okay, that’s enough head-petting for now, pal. And Dane, if I let him get away with too much, do you blame me? I’m just glad he likes me now.” 

“See, this is how the bad cop plays his games,” Noah said. He jerked his thumb in Dwight’s direction. “First he lets Freddy get away with that, then he doesn’t pick him up on pot charges, then he’s actually letting him get away with murder –“ 

“Hey!” Dwight said sharply. His eyebrows came down nearly into his eye sockets. “Don’t _ever_ joke about that, Noah. Not with all the shitheads in the news – God, sorry, Freddy.” He glanced guiltily at Theo before turning his attention back to his husband. “Okay, Noah?” 

Noah’s face fell. “Sorry, Dwight,” he said. “I didn’t think. Freddy, don’t repeat that. Dwight’s not gonna let you get away with murder.” He wrapped his skinny arms around his torso, covered in a long-sleeved black T-shirt with some Iron Maiden tour ad on it, and shivered. “Theo, can we close the door? It’s f… _freaking_ freezing in here.” 

“No, don’t close the door!” a woman shouted from outside. Dane recognized Bill’s friend from his bachelor party coming up the front path, two boys clad in bright yellow Hawaiian-print shirts in tow. _Monique_ , he remembered, one of Bill’s fellow nurses. “Just a second, we’re coming in.” 

Theo went to hold the screen door open. “Hey, Monique,” he called. “Hey, you two. Behaving yourselves for your mom?” 

“ _Yes!_ ” said the boys in unison, and ran through the door, which Theo continued to hold open as their mother came in. On close inspection, Dane thought they were probably twins, maybe a little younger than Thayer. He was horrible at estimating other people’s kids’ ages, though. “Lookit, Dr. D., we’re Dr. Mephisto and his monkey thing!” one of them exclaimed in audible delight, holding out his arms. “I’m Dr. Mephisto ‘cause I’m taller.” 

“Bryden, _behave_ ,” said Monique, a warning tone in her voice. “No hyper stuff tonight.” She took off her green windbreaker and hung it on the coat rack by the door with fluid familiarity; clearly, she’d been here many times before. Maybe there would be a day when Dane was just as comfortable at his cousin’s house as Bill’s friend was, and he hoped that day would be soon. 

Bryden pouted. “I’m behaving,” he said. “Mom, Ray’s touching the pig.” 

“It’s okay if he touches the pig,” Noah said, smiling down at the second kid. “You’re Ray? Ray, this is Kosher and I’m Noah. He’s my piggy son. It’s cool to pet him if you want.” 

“I’m Reynard,” the boy said, “like the fox. I’m eight and so’s Bry. How old is Kosher? Oh!” He snatched his hand away. “He licked me!” 

“He does that,” said Noah with a smirk. “So if you want to…okay, he ran off.” 

That wasn’t quite accurate. Ray had indeed left the room, but he was in and out of the living room in about five seconds, returning with Rug in his arms. “I found the kitty!” he announced. “Look, the kitty’s a good boy. He’s purring on me.” 

“Watch out,” Theo warned. “Rug fakes it, but he’s _not_ a good boy. Keep your hands away from the claws. Rug – Rug, _close your mouth_.” He rushed over to Ray and attempted to take the cat away, only for Rug to butt his head against Ray’s chest and vehemently oppose Theo with a loud hiss. 

Ray cuddled him all the harder. “Good hissy boy,” he said. “See, Dr. Derensky, he’s a good boy. He loves me. Right, Rug? Wanna give me a licky kiss?” He tilted his chin downward and Rug, as if he understood what he’d been asked (maybe he did – cats were a little too smart, in Dane’s opinion), licked the underside. “Sandpaper tongue!” 

“Monique!” Bill burst out of the room closest to the stairs, which Dinah had told Dane was supposed to be a parlor, but was used by her ‘idiot brother’ – her words, not his – as a massive storage room. “You’ve made it!” He had both hands full of DVDs, one of which fell onto the floor as he came out. “Ready for a night of relaxation? Oh, you two look just adorable. Are you in for the South Park theme, too?” He set the movies down on the stairs and appraised both boys, hands on his hips. “Let’s see…are you Marlon Brando twins?” 

“No, we’re Dr. Mephisto and his monkey thing,” Bryden repeated. “I’m Dr. Mephisto. Hi, Bill!” He charged towards Bill and hugged him tight around the middle. Bill _oof_ ed. “Do you like them? We wanted to be those farty guys, but Dr. Derensky said Phil and Caleb are already doing that.” 

Monique rolled her eyes. “No way I’m letting you two go as ‘farty guys,’” she said. “Bryden, play nice. No hugging other people without permission.” She untangled her son from Bill’s stomach and marched him back over to the knot of people. “Remember what I said? Behave. I’m giving you and your brother a job. Look after Freddy and make sure he has a nice first Halloween.” 

“We have Halloween in Michel Delving,” Freddy said. “Everyone has cider and a pumpkin pudding. It’s nummy.” He rubbed his belly, then widened his eyes and quickly tightened his hood strings. “I mean, _mmm mm mfff mmm nnnn mm mmmm!_ ” 

The twins burst into snickers, and even Rug seemed to smile, if you could call a kitty sneer a smile. “He doesn’t know how to be Kenny,” said Ray. He kissed the top of Rug’s head; Rug flicked the tip of his tail against his arm, dark gray against dark brown. “Dr. Derensky, Mom said you got a new cat. Where is he?” 

Freddy untied his strings. “Carpet is _my_ cat,” he said, crossing his arms. God, he looked like Theo, expression and all. Suddenly, Dane found the stories that Theo told him of being told at the grocery store how cute ‘his son’ was to be far more believable. “But you can pet him,” he added quickly after a glance at Theo. “He likes to get a good pet-pet-pet.” 

“You can pet Kosher, too,” Noah interjected, as if he was actually jealous of the attention an eight-year-old was paying the cat instead of his pig. Dane had seen breeders with prizewinning boars who were less obvious about wanting people to look at their pigs. He stifled a smirk. 

“Monique,” said Bill, “I’ve got Boone’s Farm and crisps in the kitchen for movie night. There’s also some hot chocolate if you want that. It’s the Trader Joe’s stuff, really not bad.” 

“That cheap stuff?” Monique said. “Bill, you know that’s just Gallo.” 

Rug squirmed out of Ray’s arms and leaped down onto the floor. Ray immediately began to chase after him. “Mom,” he called after his shoulder as he disappeared back into the living room, “you _like_ cheap stuff. You said expensive wine just gets turned into expensive pee.” 

“Oh, yeah, you did,” said Bryden as Monique stood there, open-mouthed, one hand pressed against the side of her face. Then, probably realizing that staying in the line of fire was a bad idea, he raced off after his brother. “I’m gonna go help Ray find the other kitty!” 

“I’m raiding the fridge,” said Noah. He took Dwight’s hand and stroked Kosher’s sling-swaddled bottom with the other. “Come on, Dwight, I bet there are brownies in there.” 

“Biscuits,” said Bill, then louder, “ _biscuits!_ And you’d best not eat them all or I’ll warm your bums! They took me hours.” He looked around with an annoyed expression, hands still on his hips. “Can someone please close this door? It’s absolutely frigid in here.” Before anyone could say anything, he blew out his breath. “All right, _I’ll_ close the door.” 

Theo came up behind him and kissed the back of his neck as he did just that. “Thanks, Bill,” he said. “Sorry about all the chaos. You and Monique should go enjoy your night.” He took in a deep breath and blew a raspberry on the back of Bill’s neck, which sent strands of his hair in all directions. 

Bill shivered, yelped, and spun around. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Theodor!” Far from reacting in anger, though, he took Theo’s face in his hands and kissed him square on the mouth. “There are better ways to express yourself than covering my neck in whatever you’ve got on your teeth.”

“ _Ew_ ,” Freddy said, wrinkling his nose, “ _old people_ love. It’s icky.” 

“You two _are_ a honeymoon phase,” Dane agreed, and picked Freddy up. He hadn’t eaten any enchiladas today or been on a plane as far as Dane knew, so he didn’t think there was much risk of getting covered in vomit again. “So you’re Kenny, Freddy. Does that mean your other friends are Stan, Kyle, and Cartman? And don’t put your hood back up to answer – I won’t be able to understand.” 

“Yes,” Freddy said with a nod. “Merry is Kyle and Pippin is Stan. Sam is Cartman ‘cause he’s fat, but we can’t say mean things about his fat. His mum and dad said we can’t. I don’t know what everyone else is.” 

“You’ve already heard what my sons are,” Monique offered. “I’m surprised you’re allowed to watch South Park, Freddy. Shouldn’t your Uncle Bill know better?” 

Bill let out a very annoyed sigh and broke away from Theo’s embrace. “He’s _not_ ,” he said. “Phil and Caleb let him watch a few episodes and then he went and told his little school friends about it. We’re lucky we’ve not gotten sued or boycotted or what have you.” 

“Parents around here can be pretty litigious,” Theo added. “I had to promise a million times that I wouldn’t let their kids watch anything inappropriate, and we won’t stay out too late.” He held up his fingers and ticked them down, starting with his thumb. “Let’s see, I’m keeping them here until their parents can pick them up, too. And no homemade snacks. That’s a no-brainer.” 

“It’s a good idea,” said Dane, “but you know the razor blades in the candy thing is a hoax, right? It was some guy in the seventies and he did it to his own kid for the insurance money. And I think it was…cyanide? Not razor blades or drugs.” Not that he let his kids have homemade Halloween treats himself, but it wasn’t a good idea to be paranoid. There were plenty of parents in Chicago who were tight with ambulance chasers and he’d seen the effects firsthand. Besides, as he’d heard before, _no_ addict was going to go handing out their precious stash to a neighborhood full of five-year-olds. 

Freddy shivered. “I don’t want any razor blades in my sweeties,” he said. “They’ll cut my mouth, Cousin Dane. It hurts.” 

“Dane,” Noah yelled from the kitchen, “can I give Kosher some warm milk?” 

Oh, screw it all. Did he have to come back there and micromanage a helicopter pig parent? Great way to spend the evening. “No way!” Dane shouted back. “He can have warm water. Don’t go crazy, Noah.” 

“And don’t drink all my drinks!” said Bill. “On that note, Monique, I think we’d better go in there and rescue our snacks before those two get at them. I’m sure Theo and Dane are capable of watching the twins before the trick-or-treating starts.” He pointed towards the kitchen. “Shall we go wage war?” 

Monique picked up the DVDs from the stairs and followed him. “I don’t know about war,” she said as they left. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.” 

“Well, if they eat all our cheese puffs, it will,” Bill replied. 

Cheese puffs weren’t the only thing that could start a war if Noah wanted to feed Kosher dairy while he had a cold. Non-approved dairy, at that. “Come on, Freddy, let’s go make sure that Noah isn’t about to poison his pig,” Dane said, and carried Freddy into the kitchen. 

“ _Poison?_ ” Freddy cried, clutching Dane tighter. 

Dwight stood in front of the refrigerator, shoving baby carrots into his mouth, while Bill and Monique emptied the pantry and Noah filled up a baby bottle at the sink. “It’s warm water, _relax_ ,” he said without turning around. Maybe his criminal history had given him a super-strong sense of hearing if he could hear what Freddy said over the water, and if so, Dane almost envied the shitty childhood that he’d heard about from Theo and Noah himself. “Don’t worry, I would never poison Kosher. Kosher’s getting a warm bottle of nothing. Happy, Dane?” 

“If it means he won’t get diarrhea or more congestion, then yes,” said Dane. He wasn’t about to rise to the bait, no matter how earnest Noah was about loving Kosher. “How is it that you have a baby bottle for your pig? He’s growing fine as far as I can tell.” 

“Come on, don’t tell me you never succumbed to how cute it is to feed a baby animal from a bottle,” Noah said. He turned around and cuddled Kosher in his sling. “Does Kosher want a bottle of warm water? Mean old Dane says you can’t have warm milk, but that’s okay. I’ll still take care of you.” 

Just as Noah brought the bottle to Kosher’s mouth and let Kosher lick it, the doorbell rang. “Oh, maybe that’s my friends!” said Freddy excitedly, and squirmed. “Can I get down?” 

“Oh, sure.” Dane set him down on the floor and watched him run out of the kitchen at an impressively fast speed, considering he was dressed in enough layers to protect him from a nuclear winter as well as a regular one. “I’m assuming Theo’s having all the kids over,” he said, “if Danny lets Oreet know that South Park even exists.” 

“Dane’s here? Hi, Dane!” a very familiar voice called to him. 

Not any of Freddy’s friends, then. “Hi, Galil!” Dane said, and went back into the entryway. 

He didn’t know what kind of costume he’d been expecting apart from something in the general category of ‘garish,’ but Galil looked pretty normal. It looked like he’d messed up his hair with gel or something and there were big brown freckles painted on his cheeks; apart from that, he just had on a black T-shirt over a long-sleeved white shirt, jeans, and a pair of sneakers. “I’m Scott Tenorman!” he said when he saw Dane. “That’s the guy who made Cartman eat his you-know-whats.” 

Dane was familiar enough with the episode that he didn’t need to ask what the you-know-whats were. Personally, he’d been grossed out by Cartman being tricked into eating an older kid’s pubes, but hey, different strokes. “I’m surprised,” he said. “Shouldn’t you and Geula be Kyle and Ike Broflovski? You’re Jewish and she’s the right age.” 

“I asked, but _Ima_ said no,” said Galil, looking a little crestfallen. “She didn’t want to be Kyle’s mom, either, and Dr. Derensky said she’d be perfect for it. She has the red hair and everything.” 

“And she has the attitude, too,” said Theo. “How many times, Galil? You can call me Uncle Theo.” He bent down and gave Galil a big hug. “You’re actually a little early. Bill’s friend’s kids are here to trick-or-treat with us, too. We’re still waiting on Freddy’s friends. Freddy, do you know if they’re coming by themselves or separately?” 

“Sam’s dad is bringing everyone in his car,” Freddy answered. “Where are they?” He sank his teeth into his lower lip and chewed on it, eyes big and worried under tilted brows. “Don’t they like me?” 

It was Freddy’s turn to get swept into a huge Theo-hug. “I’m sure they’re just working on their costumes,” Theo said into his nephew’s hair. “Or they’re getting their treat buckets ready. Don’t worry, Freddo, _everyone_ likes you.” 

Freddy craned his neck and gazed up at Theo. “Really?” 

“Sure,” said Dane. “I like you. Your uncles like you, and all your relatives on Uncle Bill’s side, and Dee and Boaz and the boys. Have you been to Hillel yet? I bet everyone likes you there.” 

“And the kitties,” said Freddy. “Where are the –“ 

“Here they are!” Ray interrupted as he raced into the room, arms full of gray cat and neck covered in brown-and-white cat. “I found the other kitty, Dr. Derensky! This is your kitty, right, Freddy? It’s Freddy, right?” 

“Carpet!” said Freddy, perking up. “Was a bad kitty under the couch? He’s not supposed to be under there. He gets dust balls in his paws.” 

Carpet jumped off Ray’s shoulders, slunk over to Freddy, and climbed up his person with a _meeeow_. “Yeah, he was coming out of there,” said Ray as his face fell. “Aw, I wanted to hold him. He’s a friendly kitty.” 

“He’s _my_ kitty,” said Freddy. “You can pet him now if you want. He likes to hang ‘round my neck. Cousin Dane says he’s a big pillow, right, Cousin Dane?” 

“I do say that,” Dane agreed. Noah, minus Dwight, came back out into the entryway with Kosher happily sucking on his bottle of water. Pigs got all grunty and happy at the smallest of pleasures, he found, including a brief roll in the mud followed by a slurp at the water trough. “Hey, Noah. Is your spoiled little piggy enjoying his warm bottle of water?” 

“Yes, he is,” said Noah, not rising to Dane’s bait (to his credit). “Kosher doesn’t get a warm bottle of milk because Dane is mean, yes, he is,” he cooed to the pig. “But he gets a nice bottle of warm water and when we get home, he’ll get some pig chow, even if he can’t taste it.” 

Galil glanced at himself in the mirror on the wall and messed up his hair a little more, then went to Noah and Kosher. “Hi, Kosher,” he said. “Hi, Noah. What’s wrong with Kosher? Is he sick?” He rubbed one of Kosher’s perked-up ears between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Kosher has a cold,” said Noah. “Dane says if he’s not better in like two days, I should take him to the vet. But you’ll be all better by then, won’t you, Kosher? Good little piggy-butt.” 

Galil put his face close to Kosher’s and kissed him between the eyes. “I hate having colds,” he said. “Good Kosher, trying to stay healthy.” It was then that, with supremely horrible timing, Kosher sneezed in Galil’s face; Galil jumped back, looking absolutely disgusted. “Ew! Oh, _God!_ ” 

Surprisingly, Theo was the only one who didn’t start laughing (and Dane was ashamed to count himself among the gigglers, but he couldn’t help it; the look on Galil’s face was too awesome). “That sucks, kid,” he said, patting Galil on the shoulder. “If you want to go upstairs and wash off, you can. I don’t think Phil and Caleb are taking up the hall bathroom, but you can use mine if they are.” 

“ _Thanks_ ,” said Galil fervently, and ran up the stairs. 

Theo turned to Dane and raised an eyebrow at him. “Not nice,” he said. “Pig snot is no laughing matter.” 

“Hypocrite,” said Dane. “Where _are_ Phil and Caleb? They’re taking a really long time for South Park outfits.” He thought he should know, having watched the show quite a few times himself - albeit without his kids, in contrast to Phil and Caleb’s apparently warped sense of responsibility. 

“Ah, who the hell knows with those two,” said Theo, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “You should get ready, too.” He flicked his eyes up and down Dane’s body. 

“I would if I actually knew who I was supposed to be dressing as,” Dane told him. He would have designed his own costume, but he figured Theo would want to tell him what to wear to keep up with the theme, as he’d hinted. Apparently, he’d been wrong. “Were you ever going to give me a character?” 

Theo hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Dammit, I forgot!” he said. “Shit. Sorry, Freddy, I mean _crap_. Dane, there’s some really strong hair gel in my bathroom. You mind making your hair point towards the ceiling if you can? It’s the right color.” 

“For what?” 

Theo winked at him. “For Mr. and Mr. Broflovski, of course. Thought I’d shake up the neighborhood a little. You don’t have to wear Mrs. Broflovski’s lipstick, though. I thought that would be in bad taste.” 

Dane could think of several reasons that that would be in bad taste, and he inwardly thanked God that Theo hadn’t seen fit to enumerate them. “Okay,” he said. “The Broflovskis as a gay couple – I can work with that. How scary do you want me to make my hair?” 

“As beehive-ish as you can.” 

“Okay, then, maximum scary and maximum hold.” Dane was no stranger to messing up his hair. After all, he had dressed up as a lion for Halloween a few times as a kid and he’d barely needed to wear anything more indicative than a gold sweater and some painted-on whiskers for people to guess. “Freddy, I’m going upstairs. You hang out with your Uncle Theo for a while.” 

“And I’ll hang out with the kitty,” said Ray. “Two kitties. Freddy, can I pet Carpet now?” Freddy nodded, and Ray shifted Rug to a secure semi-football hold in the crook of his arm, then began to pet Carpet as well. “Your kitties are so soft.” 

The volume on the zombie or monster movie, which Dane couldn’t discern from this distance, came down in the living room. “Reynard,” Monique called, “play nice with the kitties. You already made one of ‘em run off before.” A crunching sound indicated that Bill was eating a noisy snack, probably on the couch next to her in the half-sprawl of extreme relaxation that Dane had observed after the wedding. “You want to come in here and watch with Bill and Bry and me? It’s just a vampire movie.” Okay, he’d missed the mark, but the cheesy music was pretty much the same in all three genres. 

“No, Mom, the kitties love me,” Ray protested. “They didn’t bite me. Rug’s purring again.” Rug didn’t seem overly enthused with the football hold, for his part, but it was true that he was purring audibly. Not bad for a cat who thought the solution to any given Gordian knot was to stick his claws in and bite it until it fell apart. Dane had to hand it to the kid. 

“Well, if you’re sure,” said Monique, “just play nice. Kitties are fragile.” She turned the volume back up, and a twin crunching noise to the first indicated that she was digging into the snacks as well. 

That was probably his cue to go upstairs and get some of that crap in his hair before everyone arrived and he held up the trick-or-treat procession. This stuff was sacred to kids. Even Thayer got in on the shouting if his parents started out even a minute or so late. Eh, when you were too young to go by yourself, Dane figured you probably had a point there. “Theo, I’ll go get ready upstairs,” he said. “Your bathroom, you said? And what I’m wearing is okay?” 

“No way,” said Noah. “You don’t look a thing like Sheila.” 

“Knock it off, Noah. Um…” Theo squinted at him. “Okay, Mrs. Broflovski usually wears a blue cardigan, I think. There’s one in my closet if you want to wear it, close to the door. I think we’re about the same size.” 

Dane _wished_. Yeah, maybe their heights were in the same range, but Theo probably had two inches on him and a lot more muscle, too. Maybe he should take up forging. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.” 

Carpet leaped off Freddy’s neck and streaked up the stairs in front of Dane, and was already sitting in the litter box when Dane arrived in the master bathroom. Dane snorted and shook his head with a half-smile – cats had the worst timing. Then, while Carpet peed, he took a look at the hair products on the counter (that one about volume and anti-frizz was probably Bill’s, he figured) and found a jar of hair stuff that was probably what Theo had told him about. _Maximum-hold hair glue_ , it said. Yeah, it would probably work. 

“You’re weird, you know that?” he said to Carpet, taking out a glob of the stuff (it smelled like cedar or some other kind of manly crap) and massaging it into his hair. “Peeing while I do my hair. Who does that?” Carpet shot him a reproachful yellow-green glare in the mirror and hissed. “Whatever. You probably just think I’m intruding on your bathroom time, don’t you? I guess you _were_ here first.” 

The cat ignored him and took his sweet time cleaning up after himself, then ran out. “Good boy, I guess.” Dane made a wacky face at himself in the mirror and pulled his hair up towards the ceiling in handfuls. It made spikes at first, not quite the effect he was going for, so he pressed the spikes together until he got something that he thought could pass for a man-beehive if the viewer was far enough away. Good enough. He washed his hands to remove the manly-scented glop and went to check Theo’s closet. 

The cardigan was where Theo had said it would be, but someone had half-buried it in a hanging avalanche of corny print shirts, interspersed with oxford shirts in various boring colors. Dane whistled to himself while he took the opportunity to do some light snooping; _nothing serious_ , he reassured his twinging conscience, _just looking at their style. It’s not like I’m going through their underwear drawers._

Not that the closet was any less interesting. All right, so Dane was no fashionista, but he was a bit of snappy dresser himself if pressed into it. Both his cousin and his cousin’s husband, he was sad to discover, had the fashion sense of a couple of plastic trolls. No, the plastic trolls had better fashion sense, because at least they were smart enough to go naked. “God,” Dane muttered, fingering the millionth frumpy sweater on what was obviously Bill’s side of the closet, “you two don’t know how to dress.” 

Theo’s side contained horrors almost beyond recounting. Nerdy-professor jackets with actual suede patches on the elbows, old T-shirts from Theo’s _high school_ that probably should have been thrown in a Dumpster (or at least a drawer) instead of being hung up, a few sweaters that Bill had to have made, and actual honest-to-God plaid madras shorts. Compared to all that, the oxford shirts and black pants seemed like high points of fashion. 

Shaking his head, Dane moved aside a shirt, only to come face-to-face with a harness. A leather harness. With a hole in the middle. Even he knew what that was for, and the thought made his face flame. “I think that’s my cue to go,” he said aloud, dropped the shirt, and pulled on Theo’s blue cardigan while running out of the room. 

Freddy, Ray, Dwight, and Galil had disappeared, but Noah sat on the steps with Kosher in his arms and Theo was still hanging out by the door. “Hey,” he said, and waved at Dane. “Damn, that’s uncanny. Is the sweater comfortable?” 

_Don’t think about the black leather dildo harness, oh, God, don’t think about the black leather dildo harness_. Dane cleared his throat. “Yeah, just fine,” he said. “Carpet was peeing in there while I did my hair. Rude cat.” 

Theo squinted at him. “You’re kind of red.” 

“What’d you expect? I just ran down the stairs,” Dane said. Thank God he had that excuse built in. With even a little exertion, he blushed like a sunset and took about as long for the color to fade. “Where are the kids? Phil and Caleb still aren’t down here?” 

“No, not yet.” Theo looked at his watch. “Actually, I don’t know what’s taking them.” He strode to the stairs, tilted up his head, and shouted “Phil! Caleb! What are you doing up there, _sewing_ your costumes?” 

After a second, there came a faint reply. “Sorry, Uncle Theo!” Dane strained to make out the words. “We’re on our phones.” 

“What?” Theo called back. 

“ _Phones!_ We’ll be right down!” A door slammed, and about a minute later, both boys came down the stairs, leaping more than running on their long, skinny legs that Noah ducked to avoid. They had on identical pairs of brown pants and black shoes, but their T-shirts and hair colors let Dane know right away who they were supposed to be. 

“Terrance and Phillip, huh?” he said, and made finger guns at the boys. They had the requisite letters attached to the fronts of their shirts in black felt, Caleb’s complete with the tilted top of the ‘T’. “Nice job. Phil, you barely had to do anything at all, did you?” 

They both folded their arms and opened their mouths wide. It was completely creepy, and so true to the show that Dane had to laugh. “We’re from _Canada_ ,” said Caleb. “We don’t know anything _aboot_ Phil and Caleb.” 

“They say _aboat_ , not _aboot_ ,” Dane corrected. He’d known a couple of Canadians at news station affiliates who got pissed when people made that joke, along with jabs at Peter Jennings. “How are you planning on doing the farts?” 

Phil and Caleb grinned identical mischievous grins, reached into their pockets, and pulled out clear cans of something that looked a little like Play-Doh, blue for Phil and red for Caleb. “Fart putty!” said Phil. “Now we can be really accurate –“ 

“Uh-uh-uh,” said Theo, holding up his finger. “No way. You guys aren’t making farts while we trick-or-treat, am I clear?”

“Uncle Theo!” 

Theo made a slashing motion with his palm. “Nope. This falls into the category of ‘disruptive behavior’, guys. You think people will give the little kids candy if you’re constantly farting at ‘em? Think about other people.” Caleb stared down at the floor. Phil bit his lip. “I know you two are good kids.” Theo sighed. “Look, you can set that putty off once every half hour, but any more than that and I’m taking it away and you’re off the trick-or-treat train.” 

“Every half hour?” Caleb asked. Theo nodded. “But Uncle Theo, that’s almost never!” 

“Take it or leave it,” Theo said, folding his arms. “Believe me, you don’t want me to bring your mother into this. In fact,” he added, rubbing his chin, “I bet she doesn’t know you have that stuff on you, does she?” 

The tip of Phil’s nose went pink, which was apparently all the answer either of them was going to give. “Yeah,” said Dane, “didn’t think so. Fart putty’s only funny in small doses, you two. _I_ think it’s funny, personally, but not a lot of people will.” 

“I think it’s funny, too,” said Noah. The doorbell rang and he jumped up, setting the bottle down on the step. “I’ll get that, Theo.” 

“It’s probably a ghost!” yelled Bryden from the living room, followed by cackles from Bill and Monique. “What’s so funny? Mom, is this house haunted? _Mom?_ ” 

Monique laughed a little more, caught her breath, and said “Who knows, sweetie? This house is really old. Could’ve been lots of people died in here, couldn’t there, Bill?” 

“Oh, yes, nobody really knows.” Bill took a loud bite of something. “I think this house was around during the Revolutionary War. There could be plenty of dead soldiers under the floorboards. Rotting skeletons in the closet.” 

Noah, after some protracted pulling, managed to get the door open right as that particular phrase came out of Bill’s mouth. “ _Whoa_ ,” said Oreet Reisberg, wide-eyed, “who’s got skeletons in the closet?” Her sibilants came out as whistles. “Is someone dead?” 

“Hi, Oreet!” Caleb waved. “You get your braces tightened?” 

Oreet pressed a fingertip against her top teeth. “Yeah,” she said. “Stupid braces. Danny said if I’m supposed to be Shelly Marsh anyway, it’ll be more accurate, but I think he just wanted me to stop saying it hurts.” She winced. “It really does hurt.” 

“I’m so sorry,” said Caleb, running his tongue over his own braces. Dane seemed to remember that the bands glowed in the dark, but of course, he couldn’t see that effect now. “It sucks. Hope you can get them off soon.” 

Phil guffawed, but had the courtesy to wipe the smirk off his face when Caleb and Oreet both whipped their heads around to glare at him. “Sucks to be you, Oreet,” he said, and grinned, showing off his orthodontia-free mouth. “Do you even know when you’re supposed to get them off?” 

“Probably the same time you get yours back on, assface,” said Caleb. 

“Hey!” Theo told him sharply, interceding with his upraised hand again like a crossing guard making a ‘stop’ hand sign. “Caley, don’t call your brother an assface, even if he’s acting like one. Phil, don’t tease Oreet about her braces – you were in the same boat last year. Have a little compassion. Both of you go hang out in the living room with Bill and Monique until you learn to act your age.” 

Just then, a car horn honked outside. “Looks like you two are saved by the bell,” Dane said as Theo went to the door. “Or the horn. You kids ever seen Saved by the Bell?” 

Caleb just looked at him like he couldn’t believe anyone could be that out of it. Great, now Dane felt old. “I was born in 2002,” he said. “Was that the nineties or something?” 

“Yeah, mostly.” He’d have to see if Netflix had the series. Nostalgia was a real bitch when it hit. “Theo, who’s out there?” 

“Freddy’s friends finally got here,” said Theo, and held the door open. “Harold, how are you doing? You’re right on time.” 

Theo being social with his adopted kid’s friends’ parents – now there was something Dane had never expected to see, even before Theo came out. Theo was not the socializing type, or at least the whole family had thought he wasn’t. “Hey, I’m Theo’s cousin Dane,” he said, giving a brief wave as the man came in, trailing three kids in various shades of blond behind him. 

“Harold Gamgee. Hi.” The man came over to him and held out his hand, which Dane shook. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that this guy was probably related to Bill; comfortably plump, he had laugh lines around his eyes, sandy hair, and a snub nose. One of the little boys looked just like him and had to be his kid. “This is my son Sam, and his friends Merry Brennan and Peregrin Tucker.” 

“That’s _Pip_ ,” said the kid in the Stan Marsh costume, crossing his arms and scowling. “I’m not a bird, Mr. Gamgee!” 

Harold wiggled his eyebrows at Dane. “Of course, Pip,” he said gravely, “my mistake. How could I have ever forgotten something so important?” A parental smile flickered over his mouth and Dane returned it. Ah, he remembered those days. 

“Daddy,” said Sam, a fat little boy with abundant blond curls who was – of course – dressed as Cartman, “are you coming trick-or-treating with us? Please come!” 

His father knelt down and hugged him. “Sorry, bucko, I need to go home and help your mom with the baby. Sam has a new sister,” he clarified as he stood up. “Molly’s just a month old and there are four others at home.” 

“Six kids, wow,” said Dane. “Hats off to you for juggling all of them. What are their names?” 

“Hamish, Harold Junior, Daisy, and May,” Harold said, counting the names off on his fingers. “Ham’s the oldest and he’s twelve. Before you ask, yes, we did get started early, and no, we’re not Catholic. We’re Episcopalian.” 

Theo came over and briefly patted Harold’s back. It was an awkward gesture, but Dane had to give him credit for trying to act like a normal parent. “Hey, and we’re Jewish,” he said. “No religious discrimination in here. So did you kids bring your own candy bags?” 

“I got a pillowcase,” said the little girl, Merry. “Pip has a thingy his mom made him. He’s my cousin.” 

Sam lifted a plastic pumpkin bucket like the one Freddy had. “This is mine.” He stared up at Dane, open-mouthed. “You have really red hair! It’s like Diamond’s hair at school.” 

“You have a friend named Diamond?” said Noah. 

“Yes,” said Pip. “I’m gonna marry her. Oh, is that a piggy?” He rushed to Noah, followed by the other two plus Phil and Caleb, who seemed to be just along for the ride, judging by their slow saunter. “I don’t know anyone who has a piggy!” 

Noah sat back with an avuncular smile. “Yup, his name’s Kosher,” he said. “Dane gave him to me as a surprise. He’s really friendly if you guys want to pet him, but he has a cold.” 

“Can I pet him, Daddy?” asked Sam. 

“Don’t know,” said Harold. “Can humans get pig colds?” Dane shook his head. “Then sure. That’s a cute pig…sorry, I don’t think I got your name.” 

Noah nodded. “Sorry, didn’t say it. I’m Noah Reisberg. Oreet over there –“ he pointed –“is my sister.” 

“What’s a Kosher?” said Merry. 

Theo dragged his hand down his face. Dane was tempted to do the same. Trust a five-year-old to ask the doozy questions. “It’s a Jewish joke,” he said. “Calling a pig Kosher, I mean, not being kosher. If you’re Jewish and you observe all the food laws, you can’t eat pigs because they’re unclean, and when something is all right to eat, it’s called kosher.” 

“It’s because of the parasites!” Bill hollered. “Pigs have got all sorts of worms. Nasty symptoms. Of course the early Jews didn’t know that. They were smart enough to recognize the sicknesses.” 

“ _Ew!_ ” all four tiny kids squealed. “Uncle Bill, worms are icky!” Freddy said. “I don’t want worms!” 

“Then don’t eat undercooked pork,” said Bill, “or go about in the American South without shoes in the summer, and you’ll be just fine.” 

Freddy turned and stared dolefully at Theo, his eyes enormous and his lips pressed together. “Uncle Theo, are we going to get worms?” 

“No. Oh, God, no. No one’s getting worms.” Theo turned his gaze towards the living room and with a venomous narrowing of his eyes, he shouted “Hey, Bill! Shut up about worms. The kids don’t need to hear that, okay? Go back to the zombie movie.” 

“It’s a vampire movie,” said Monique. 

“Whatever.” Theo looked at his watch. “Okay, it’s just about five-thirty. You kids ready to go trick-or-treating?” 

All of the kids, even the oh-so-mature Phil and Caleb, cheered at that. “You’ll be sure to text us all, right?” Harold said, raising his voice over the noise. “Pal Tucker still doesn’t completely trust you. Every half hour, he says.” 

“Yeah, every half hour, okay,” said Theo. He pulled out his phone and tapped his finger against the screen. “I have all your numbers saved. You’ll get a group text every half hour. And Pal Tucker’s totally right – no one should trust me.” He chuckled. “Kidding. Your kids will be perfectly safe.” 

“Text me, too,” said Monique. 

“Yeah,” Noah said, “and Danny. He’ll flip if you don’t.” 

Caleb smiled and held up his can of putty. “Don’t worry, Uncle Theo, we’ll remind you with our farts. You did say you have to send those texts every half hour.” 

“Don’t be a smart-aleck,” said Theo, rolling his eyes. “Okay, Freddo, go get your pumpkin bucket. Everyone else, grab whatever containers you brought. We’re going trick-or-treating.” He said it like a man venturing out into a blizzard with little light and less food, with his face set hard and his eyebrows furrowed. In all honesty, it was a little funny. 

There was a sudden sharp pain in both ankles and Dane jumped so hard he thought he came close to hitting the ceiling. “Ow!” he yelped, and looked down at his feet. “Bad cat, Rug!” His socks were full of claws and Rug, ever the shameless hunter, had two of Dane’s toes caught between his huge cat-fangs. “Theo, get him off me!” 

“Jesus F. Lipschitz on a _cracker_ ,” said Theo, and got on his knees, then grabbed Rug around the belly and began to pull him away. “Rug, for the millionth time, no attacking people’s fuckin’ ankles…oops.” He looked briefly at Harold. “Sorry, extenuating circumstances.” 

“Two of them have older siblings. They’ve heard it all before,” said Harold. 

“Yeah,” Pip put in, “I got three big sisters!” 

Theo finally extricated Rug, and Dane squinted at his feet to see if they were bleeding through his socks. They were not. “Bad cat,” he said, and put Rug down on the steps next to Noah. “Very bad cat. You don’t get any treats tonight. Noah, no treats, even if he begs nicely.” 

Ray and Bryden appeared in the entrance to the living room, pillowcases in hand. “Bill told Mom it’s ‘cause Rug is haunted,” Ray informed them all. “He has a ghost in him. It makes him act up.” 

“Act _out_ ,” said Monique, and came out to the entryway. “Dane, before you go, let me show you something.” 

“Oh, _Mom!_ ” Bryden complained. “Not the baby picture!” 

“What are you talking about? You two were adorable in that baby picture. Everyone says so,” said Monique, and pulled her wallet out of her jeans pocket, then took a battered photo from one of its slots. “Besides, it’ll keep you two from getting big heads. Dane, have a look at this.” 

He did. There were Bryden and Reynard, one grinning and one looking into the camera lens in awe, both of them wearing blue rompers and just a little baby hair on their heads for an accessory. “Aw,” he said, “you two were cute babies. Nice work, Monique. You make adorable kids.” 

Monique took the photo back and kissed his cheek. “You’re sweet, Dane,” she said. “Theo, why can’t you be more like your cousin?” 

“Oh, no one should want to be like me,” said Dane before Theo could speak up about how insulted he was. “I’m too impulsive. I quit my job on national television because this Fox News guy insulted Theo.” 

“Whoa!” Bryden burst out. “Were you the one who got on YouTube?” 

YouTube? “Sorry?” 

“Bryden,” said Monique. 

“But it was cool, Mom!” Bryden said. “He went on the news and said this guy was an anti-Semitic trash heap. Someone AutoTuned it and it was so awesome.” He grinned, clapped his hands together, and began to sing. “Anti-Semitic trash heap, anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic trash heap, trash heap!” 

“No way!” said Dane. He’d tried to stay off the Internet after the ignominious, if chosen, end to his last job, but apparently that had been a mistake. AutoTune? _Kickass_. “You need to show me that AutoTune after we get back from trick-or-treating. I’m holding you to it, okay, Bryden?” 

Bryden nodded vigorously. “Yeah, yeah, totally!” he said. “It’s really funny. Ray and I put it on and dance sometimes.” 

Dane snorted through his closed lips. Of all the Internet legacies to leave, this had to be the least expected…although he probably should have expected it. “Kids these days,” he said. “Harold, is that why these guys were allowed to go as South Park characters?” 

“No, it’s mostly on the grounds of what’s the point,” said Harold. “Freddy already told them all about it. We all figured it couldn’t get any worse than that.” 

“I’m really sorry again, Mr. Gamgee,” Freddy told him. “I didn’t mean to be bad.” 

How anyone could resist those big blue eyes, Dane had no idea. Harold definitely couldn’t, because he softened visibly and patted Freddy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I know you didn’t mean to. Now I think all of you have some trick-or-treating to do, don’t you?” 

Every head in the room nodded, to which Theo replied by briefly taking Freddy’s pumpkin bucket and holding it up over his head like the Statue of Liberty’s torch. “Okay, then,” he said, “trick-or-treat time. Onward, kiddos.” 

It had been years since he’d gone trick-or-treating himself, and he definitely wasn’t a newbie to taking his kids around, but Dane’s heart pounded with excitement anyway as he strode to catch up with Theo. “This should be fun,” he said, and helped Theo hold the door open for the kids to come through: first Freddy and his friends, then Phil, Caleb, Oreet, and Galil. The twins brought up the rear, Marlon Brando hats jaunty on their heads. “We staying in the back?” 

“Yeah, we’ll make sure no one falls behind,” said Theo. 

“Look!” Pip pointed at the house next door. “The lights are on. Those guys will have candy!” He took off at a run across the lawn, all the kids following behind. 

“Guys!” Theo shouted. “Don’t go over there – that’s…Mortensen’s house…” He grimaced and covered his mouth with his hand. “Fuck, now I have to go over there, too.” 

Dane had heard plenty about Mortensen, more than enough to know why Theo wanted to avoid his house. “I’ll go bring them back,” he said. “You can stay here, Theo.” 

Theo sighed. “No, I should come.” He cut across the lawn, too, following the kids’ footsteps, and Dane went with him. 

After some apparently very serious deliberation, Merry had reached up to ring the doorbell, and the door was just creaking open when Dane and Theo arrived. “Trick or treat!” they called. Nothing happened. 

“Hello?” said Galil tentatively. 

The entryway was very dimly lit, and despite the lights, it didn’t look like anyone else was there. “Kids, you probably just kicked the door open by mistake,” said Dane. “He’s an old guy. Probably asleep or some –“ 

He cut himself off with a scream when suddenly, a shadowy figure in a fright mask leaped out from behind the door. “Boo!” it cackled, and now the kids screamed, too, some louder than others. Oh, Jesus, it felt like Dane’s heart had dropped down into his stomach. “Trick-or-treat, children!” 

“Mortensen, what the hell?” Theo demanded. “You look like a rotting corpse! You’re showing that off to kids?” 

“I like Halloween,” came the dejected voice from behind the mask. Now plodding more than leaping, Mortensen retrieved a big bowl of candy from a side table and held it out in front of him. “Two pieces each, everyone. Those are nice costumes.” 

“We’re South Park for Halloween,” Freddy told him. “I’m Kenny and that’s Cartman and…I mean…” He pulled his hood strings and began to mumble again. 

Dane shook his head and touched Freddy’s hand. “I bet Mr. Mortensen already knows what South Park is, Freddy,” he said, then put his other hand over his heart (which was still pounding at a jackhammer level). “Thanks for the candy, Mr. Mortensen. I’m Theo’s cousin Dane.” 

“Call me Dave,” said Mortensen. “Happy Halloween, everyone.” He waited for all the kids to take their pieces of candy, then began to close the door. 

Before he could get it all the way closed, though, Phil and Caleb pressed their hands against it. “Wait!” said Phil. “We want to show you something!” 

“What?” 

Before Theo could do anything to stop them, the boys took out their cans of fart putty, popped the tops, and thrust out their arms to make the putty fart in Mortensen’s face. Then they ran down the steps, giggling, as Mortensen slammed the door and the rest of the kids came running behind. 

Dane went down the steps a little slower. His face was flaming. “Phil, Caleb,” he called, “ _not nice_.” 

“No, that was a freebie,” said Theo. “Just don’t do it again. No one likes face farts. Mortensen might be the only person in the world who deserves it.” 

“But what about Osama bin Laden?” Sam asked. 

“Osama bin Laden’s dead,” Oreet answered. “He was dead way before you knew about him. Um…Kim Jong Un? He might deserve it.” 

Theo started to shuttle the kids forward along the sidewalk with movements of his hands. “Come on, everyone, let’s not clog up the walkways,” he said. “Oreet, that’s someone else who deserves it. Next house, and let’s all pray to whoever we believe in that there aren’t any more jump scares.” 

A few of the houses on Theo’s block were handing out candy, but true to what he’d said about the demographic, most were shuttered with the lights shut off. It only took a few missteps, in which the kids mistook ‘living-room lamplight’ for ‘actually home and available to hand out candy’, before Pip and Merry started taking the other kids in hand and steering them away themselves. Good thing, too. Dane didn’t think he could take any more old cranks throwing the door open and shouting after them, “Don’t you damn kids know the meaning of a closed door? Quit knockin’!” 

The houses got more interesting as they passed into the next couple of blocks. For one thing, there were more kids. “Hey, these kids have some swanky costumes,” said Dane to Theo after they crossed an intersecting street to join a couple of knots of well-dressed children. “Those are Dragon Age costumes, aren’t they?” 

“How do kids know about Dragon Age?” Theo said. “I think that game’s pretty raunchy. And don’t say a word about South Park, Dane. Freddy saw the tamer episodes.” 

“Could’ve been worse,” Dane agreed. “He might have seen the Human Centipede episode and told his friends about _that_.” 

“What’s a human centipede?” Galil asked. 

Theo shoved his knuckles into his mouth and bit down on them; behind them, a muffled snort came out. “You’ll learn when you’re older, Galil,” he mumbled. “Don’t ask me those kinds of questions now, okay? It’s something really gross.” 

“Should we go to that house, Uncle Theo?” Caleb called from farther ahead. He pointed across the street. “They have homemade cider, looks like. Probably isn’t safe.” The people in question had a table set up on their front lawn, from which two people dressed like tamer version of Cthulhu dispensed cider from a bowl with a ladle that could have been shaped like a skeletal arm (although Dane couldn’t see so well from this distance). 

“No,” said Theo, shaking his head, “we should avoid it. Maybe avoid a few of the houses on the side of that house, too, so they don’t think we’re being rude.” 

Protests went up from their group. “But _Uncle_ ,” Freddy cried, “we won’t get the sweets there!” Verbally and with nods, his friends showed their agreement (and so did Oreet, whom Dane suspected probably wasn’t allowed this much candy the rest of the year, poor girl). 

“ _Shhh_ ,” said Theo. “I know, I know, it sucks, but we don’t want to hurt their feelings. They probably worked hard on that cider, right? So we don’t want them to think that we don’t think it’s any good. Better if they just think we have too much candy already.” 

“Oh, okay,” Sam said. Leave it to the boy with five siblings to understand the mechanics of hurt feelings. There had probably been some huge fuck-off fights in his house over similar offenses. “What about that house?” He pointed to the next one on their route, a two-story house with two white pillars in front and an enormous porch. 

Theo squinted at it. “Don’t know about that one, Sam,” he said. “No one’s on the porch. Just a couple of Halloween decorations, too.” 

“No, I think people are there,” said Phil. “The lights are on inside. Porch lights, too. It can’t hurt to try, right?” 

Dane couldn’t argue with that. Besides, his sweet tooth had started making some serious protests back at the house handing out chocolate-and-crisped-rice hockey pucks and he hadn’t quite been able to control his salivary glands since. “Well, let’s head up and see,” he said. “Phil’s right. It’s an adventure.” 

All nine kids bounded up the wooden steps, which creaked under their feet, and gathered in a clump around the door. Oreet reached out and pressed the bell, and through the little mullioned-glass window set into the door, Dane saw someone stand up. “Hey,” said Theo, “I think someone’s coming. You guys were right.” 

Of course, it was just their luck that as soon as the door opened, everyone involved very clearly wished it hadn’t, including the couple inside. “Dr. Derensky,” Merry whispered loudly, “they’re wearing weird stuff.” 

Clown mask and skivvies on the one, and a dominatrix outfit – complete with feathered flogger – under a furry bear mask on the other. Weird didn’t even begin to cover it. Shit, did Dane hate clowns. “Yeah, hi,” the bear said slowly. “I really…this isn’t a good time. Isn’t trick-or-treat later?” 

“…no?” Caleb’s voice came out scared and squeaky. “It’s five-thirty to seven-thirty and it’s, uh…six-twenty right now.” 

“That’s a scary clown,” came an unasked-for comment from Ray. 

“It’s, uh, for a party,” said the clown. “We have a party upstairs. Tell you what, um, why don’t we get you kids the candy bowl and then lock the door. Sorry for the trouble.” The clown shrugged and flapped his hands towards Dane and Theo. “We mixed up the time. Honest mistake.” 

True to form, Theo put his knuckles back in his mouth and adopted an expression of pure horror. “P- _Pogo?_ ” he rasped. “Is that you, Pogo?” 

“Oh, yikes, come on, guy,” said the bear. “We’re sorry, okay? Steve, get the candy. Please.” 

Steve the Clown ran out of view and came back within seconds with a heaped-high bowl of mini chocolate bars. “We really did think it was later,” he said apologetically as the kids stuck their hands into the pile. “I think we’ll turn off the light now.” 

“Our parents are gonna be _pissed_ ,” said Phil, who seemed to have grasped the thread of exactly how wrong this situation was, and why. “I don’t think anyone should tell their parents about this. You said it was an accident, _wasn’t it?_ ” Dane hadn’t ever heard him sound more like Theo. 

“Jesus,” said the bear, who took the bowl from Steve the Clown’s hands and put it down on the cement floor of the porch. “Okay, you guys get the whole candy bowl. Split it up evenly, and…um, have a happy Halloween. We’re going inside now.” 

The door slammed, and after that, it only took everyone a few more seconds to plunder the bowl. “He had bananas on his willy-pants,” Freddy said conversationally as he stood back up. “The clownie. Uncle Theo has got willy-pants with smilies.” 

“Who’s Pogo?” asked Bryden, whose pillowcase was already sagging at the bottom. Smart boy, getting a big container. If the rest of the block was going to be like that, he’d need it, and so would everybody else.” 

“John Wayne Gacy’s clown persona,” said Theo. “He killed people. I’d rather not talk about it. Next house, guys?” He waved at the next group of kids, most of whom were dressed like princesses, who had stopped in front of the lawn. “They went inside, everyone. No more treats from this house – they’re busy!” 

Pip held up a wrapped condom, glow-in-the-dark from what Dane could tell. “I got a balloon.” 

Theo snatched it away and shoved it in his pants pocket. His cheeks and neck went red in seconds. “Anyone else get a balloon?” Heads shook all around. “Oh, thank God. _Please_ , let’s move on.” 

The desperation in his voice shook some quiet into the kids and, silently, they trotted down the steps to the next house. “I hope they don’t talk about _that_ one,” Dane said into his cousin’s ear. “Those _people_. Fuck.” 

“Yeah, I think they do,” Theo joked, although his face had gone from red to pale. “I might have to send out a pre-emptive memo to the parents myself. I swear, no one in town’s ever come up with anything like that before. Shitty, shitty luck.” 

“It could’ve happened to anyone,” Dane soothed. “At least it wasn’t a razor-blade scare.” He stepped to avoid an uneven bit of sidewalk and squeezed Theo’s upper arm. “Come on, let’s keep up. Candy will help get this crap outta your mind.” 

The sky darkened overhead and the air steadily cooled around them while the kids methodically went through the next several houses on the block and turned the corner to hit up those on the other side of the street. Dane let Theo go up with them so he could prod the kids on when they got back to him, which was less boring than it would seem; the dead leaves on the ground hadn’t all lost their color, and they turned gold and purple in the light of the streetlamps, gorgeous to look at. 

Theo smiled and slapped Dane’s hand when they left the most recently-plundered home (and wow, now Halloween Pirates sounded like some kind of excellent children’s TV-show episode, which Dane really needed to pitch to one of his well-connected ex-colleagues back at the news station). “I think I’m ready to have fun again,” he said, and they started walking to the last house on the block. “Come on up with me?” 

“Oh, sure,” said Dane. “Happy to get in on whatever you’re doing. Kids holding up okay?” 

“A couple of ‘em are flagging,” said Theo with a shrug. “Those buckets are getting a little heavy. Maybe another half block, block and we’ll head on back. People have been pretty damn generous.” 

The pumpkin buckets did look pretty heavy, and the kids who had brought cloth bags or pillowcases were nearly dragging them, too. “Kids,” Dane called, “Dr. Derensky wants to head back after maybe another block. That all right with you?” 

A couple of them moaned in protest. Most looked pretty done in, though. “Just a little more candy, please?” Bryden begged. “We only do this once a year!” Now heads nodded, including Phil’s and Caleb’s. 

“Yeah,” said Oreet, “just a little more.” 

“Ah, all right.” Theo smiled and adjusted his kippah where it was slipping off his hair. “Little longer, that’s fine. Let’s hit some more houses – onward!” 

They trudged on, and at the next house, the porch of which was sagging practically off the house proper, Theo and Dane came up with everyone. “I think it’s my turn to ring the bell,” said Theo. “Any objections?” 

“It’s fair if you get a turn,” Freddy said. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Theo rang the bell, shifting between feet as they waited, and put on his biggest smile when a guy who was maybe in his mid-thirties opened the door. The manic grin was a little scary. “Hi, we’re Mr. and Mr. Broflovski,” he announced, “and this is our merry band of South Parkers.” 

Great, now he was having fun. He probably deserved some for tromping around with all these children. _I’ll play along_ , Dane thought, and plastered on a winning smile, too. “What-what- _what?_ ” he cried, clapping his hands against his cheeks like the subject of _The Scream_. Okay, being Mrs. – or rather, a second Mr. – Broflovski was damn fun. 

The man blinked. “Wow,” he said, “nice costumes. Is that Scott Tenorman?” 

“Yup!” Galil exclaimed. “I made Cartman eat my –“ 

“Nope,” said Theo. 

“But it’s a good story! Then he made me eat my –“ 

Theo grabbed his shoulder. “ _Nope_ ,” he repeated. “Let’s not go terrorizing innocent Halloweeners.” 

“He said ‘weiners,’” said Merry with a snort and the guilty giggle of a kid who would forever relish the forbidden appeal of an adult saying something naughty around them. “That’s funny!” 

Sam, who would clearly turn out to be the peacemaker of this group unless Dane missed his guess, simply held out his container. “Trick-or-treat!” he chirped. “Don’t smell my feet. They’re stinky.” 

The man cracked a smile and reached for a bowl of candy. Tootsie Rolls, ouch, and not even the tasty fruit-flavored ones. They’d been lucky enough to escape those little fake-chocolate turds for the most part tonight, but hey, there had to be a few duds in every candy pile. Dane supposed it was just one of those universal rules of Halloween karma. “Take one, kids.” 

A bunch of hands reached into the bowl. “Happy Halloween,” said Oreet. She’d been saying that one with relish all night, probably because it didn’t have any sibilants to embarrass her. Thayer would be hitting that stage soon; Dane had already had to take him to the orthodontist to get impressions of his teeth made. They were pretty crooked and he anticipated a small fortune in costs, as well as a much larger one in anguish and pain on his son’s part. 

“Same to you.” The man frowned into the bowl. “Darn it. There was supposed to be a hand that popped out of this to scare people. Stupid thing hasn’t been working at all tonight.” 

“Do you need more battery?” Ray asked. 

“Or you’re not supposed to pile candy over top of it, maybe,” Theo suggested. 

The man shook the bowl. “Yeah, maybe.” With a shrug, he set it back inside. “Enjoy the rest of your night.” He closed the door and Theo let go of the screen door, which slammed shut behind them. 

As soon as they were back on the sidewalk, Sam reached into his candy bucket, pulled out the Tootsie Roll, and grimaced. “One Tootie Bar?” he said. “You cheap bastards!” 

Dane hiccupped down a laugh that suddenly threatened to choke him. Sweet little Sam, of all the ones to spout that off! Theo, who had his knuckles in his mouth again, wasn’t so lucky with self-control. The rest of the kids were staring at Sam in obvious admiration, especially Freddy. “You seen the episode, Sam?” Dane asked. 

“Yes,” said Sam. “Hammy showed me, ‘cept that guy, he wasn’t dressed like a scary ghost.” He pointed back at the porch they’d just vacated. “He wasn’t dressed like anything.” 

“You don’t dress like anything if you’re a grown-up,” said Bryden, “except Dr. Derensky and Dane. That’s because they’re cool.” 

“Thanks for the compliment, Bryden,” said Dane. If the people he thought cool were an indicator of Bryden’s taste, then he couldn’t wait to watch those Autotunes, because they’d undoubtedly be hilarious. “Four older siblings, huh, Sam? I should’ve known.” He seriously hoped no one ever corrected Sam on the ‘scary ghost’ assumption until he was old enough to figure out himself why the costumes on the show were so blackly hilarious. Freddy might have to learn early, growing up in a family full of Jews. At least he’d be better equipped to understand than Cartman, and quite a bit less enamored of Hitler. 

“I’m tired,” Pip announced, and yawned. The sparkle of earlier had evaporated, and now Dane just wanted to carry him on his shoulders. “Can we go home?” 

“Sure,” Theo said. “Everyone, we’re heading back. You definitely have plenty of candy to last you through the next hour if your parents don’t stop you first. Pip, you can take my hand if you want.” 

Pip silently reached up and put his hand in Theo’s, and their group turned on their heels as one to head back to Theo and Bill’s house. _Freddy’s house, too_ , Dane reminded himself. He looked down at Freddy, walking steadily at his side. “So how did you like your first American Halloween?” 

“It’s _very_ nice,” Freddy said. “I’m cold.” He put his hood up, but didn’t draw the strings; the inside of his hood had to be soaked in spit by now, and was probably damp and freezing. The night sky was a clear blue-black even with the streetlights polluting it, and Dane couldn’t help a glance up at the stars. 

They walked back past the homes they’d just plundered, more and more of them now with the lights blinking off, but all of them surrounded by milling groups of costumed kids from ages infant to (in one memorable case) about ninety. Their own herd murmured softly to each other, and their universally plodding gait showed their exhaustion. Dane’s own feet were plenty sore, though he had on the most comfortable loafers he owned. Maybe it was time to face the music and admit he needed more exercise before attempting this again. 

Noah still sat out front when they reached Theo’s house, but he looked to be closing up shop. “Ran out of candy,” he reported when he saw them. “I think I gave everyone too much. Sorry, Theo.” 

“Better to be too generous than too stingy,” Theo said, and looked at his watch. “It’s seven. You lasted longer than I would’ve. Come on in with us and you can have hot chocolate or something.” 

“That sounds good,” said Noah. He passed Theo the empty candy bowl. “You get anything?” 

“No, neither of us did,” Dane answered. “Bad form. I bet a couple of these guys will share if we ask really nicely.” 

Freddy tapped his hand. “I’ll share.” 

Score one for Bill, Theo, and Freddy’s parents, who hopefully rested in peace. “Hey, thanks a lot. Come on inside – Theo, want to let them go over their candy in the living room?” It didn’t look too raucous in there from what he could see through the window, which was little, save for the flickering TV light. 

“Yeah, we can – Pip, don’t wander off – sorry, keep an eye on them there. Pip! Trick-or-treat’s over for us.” Theo went over and took Pip’s hand, then led him back, Pip pouting like someone had taken his treat bag instead of saying he couldn’t add to it. “You got plenty of candy. Come on, everyone, inside. It’s cold out here.” 

A thought crossed Dane’s mind as he ascended the front steps, and he turned back to look at Noah behind him. “Where’s Kosher?” he asked, and stepped inside into the warmth, very glad once in that there wasn’t one of those little mini-steps from the landing to the front door (otherwise he would have completely fallen on his face just then). 

“Oh, he’s with Dwight.” Noah shut and bolted the door. “I had him out with me for a while, but he charged at some kids for playtime and their parents yelled at me. Dwight didn’t want to sit out there and keep ahold of him, so whatever. I just handed out the candy.” 

“Hi, Dane,” said Dwight from the kitchen. “Kosher’s taking a nap in the laundry room. I think he tired himself out.” 

“Oh, good.” Nothing better for a cold, pig or human, than a good long rest. Dane just hoped no one had fed him any candy on the sly. 

Theo pulled off his kippah, stowed it in his pocket, and peered into the living room. “They’re asleep in front of the TV like a couple of slugs,” he said. “Some haunted-house thing.” The dim lamplight from the living room left him half in shadow, which did suit the ghost aesthetic that Bill and Monique had been so intent on. “You kids go in. You can talk, but just don’t be too loud. I’m getting a snack in the kitchen.” 

“I’ll go in with them,” said Dane. “Living room, everyone. Let’s see if anyone has anything interesting to trade.” 

The kids all trooped in and took positions on the floor around the coffee table, the older ones cross-legged to put their candy on the table, the younger ones just dumping their stuff out onto the carpet. Bill and Monique dozed on the couch, illuminated by the TV; a couple of half-empty bags of chips rested on the side table next to Bill’s hand. 

“I’ll go first,” said Freddy. He chose a mini chocolate bar from his pile, maybe one of those he’d gotten from the weird kinksters, and set it in front of him like a dreidel player adding to the pot. “Okay, I’ve got a chocolate.” 

“Laffy Taffy,” Galil countered. “Wait. Ew, it’s banana!” He made a face at the label. “Anyone like banana? I’ll trade you this and something else for one of your things. 

“I don’t want banana!” said Ray. “It sucks.” 

A shadow ominously fell across the screen and something creaked. Was that the floor in here or the floor in the movie? It sounded awfully close. “Why are they watching _The Conjuring?_ ” Phil said as he dealt out a hand of candy among the younger kids. “Wait. We probably shouldn’t be in here. That movie’s scary as hell…” 

The theme music exploded into a jump scare with a closeup of a malevolent, rotting face inches from Dane’s eyes. He fell back, heart bonging in his chest, and then among the kids’ shrill screams, he heard one of pure terror. “ _Ghost!_ ” Freddy cried, pointing at something shadowy, slit-eyed, out of the screen and into his face, claw-handed, cackling – 

Dane screamed and jumped backwards. With a _crack_ , the back of his head hit wood and he found himself sprawled on the floor with Bill and Monique’s howls ringing in his ears, too. The house was fucking haunted and he was pretty sure he’d hit his head on the coffee table and the ghost hissed ever louder as it came closer to him. Was this brain damage or some kind of cracked dream? _Please, please don’t let me die!_

Then someone turned on a light and Theo’s voice came up out of the chaos. “What’s going on in here? What the hell happened…Dane, why are you on the floor?” 

“Ghost,” he said. Was he bleeding? He couldn’t tell. His head was hurting too much to determine if the pain was from a cut or just the force of bouncing off the table. 

“No,” said Theo, “Rug.” The cat briefly appeared in Dane’s field of vision, still hissing, as Theo held him up over Dane’s chest. “Rug decided he’s a big scary ghost. Bill, _The Conjuring?_ What were you thinking? There are kids here.” 

“We thought you’d be gone longer,” Bill said. “Sorry, Theo. Neither of us meant to scare the kids.” 

Dane sat up as slowly as he could and waited for his double vision to resolve itself. The TV was off now, thankfully. He didn’t think his heart could take another scare like that, lack of high blood pressure or no lack of high blood pressure. “I think I wee-weed,” Pip groaned, and felt his bottom. “Wait, no, I didn’t.” 

“Oh, good,” said Theo. “Glad to hear it. Kids, why don’t you go upstairs until you get picked up? I have some really cool video games and Freddy can show them to you. Dane, I’ll help you get up on the couch. You’ve gotten scared enough for one evening.” 

Dane could have protested, and probably should have. He was here to help, not lie around on the couch and get pampered. Still, he found himself taking Theo’s hand and letting his cousin get him situated on the couch. He also allowed himself Theo’s offered bag of frozen peas, can of Red Bull, and extra-rich dark chocolate from the adults-only candy bowl that Bill had hidden from Noah the day before. 

It probably wasn’t that bad a first Halloween for Freddy, he decided. At least there was plenty of candy to soften the blow of a fake ghost. But for Dane’s part, if every Halloween involved getting stealthily glared at by parents as they helped their kids out the door, then Theo could just come to Chicago next year should he want Dane there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wedgie, for those of you who aren't American, is an extremely uncomfortable phenomenon that occurs when your pants and/or underwear get stuck in your asscrack. The front version is called a melvin. 
> 
> The episode of South Park referenced here is called "Pinkeye," and is the seventh episode of the first season. [This](http://southpark.cc.com/clips/149928/cheap-bastards) clip helps explain Sam's reference. 
> 
> Quick Breakdown of South Park Characters for Those Unfamiliar  
>  _Kyle_ : the redheaded Jewish one  
>  _Ike_ : his adopted brother  
>  _Mr. and Mrs. Broflovski_ : his neurotic parents  
>  _Stan_ : best friend  
>  _Shelly_ : Stan's sister, unpleasant, has braces and headgear  
>  _Cartman_ : very fat and very terrible (unrelated)  
>  _Kenny_ : the group's fourth friend, extremely poor, always speaks unintelligibly through his parka hood  
>  _Scott Tenorman_ : a teenager who torments Cartman and is later retaliated on gruesomely  
>  _Dr. Mephisto and his assistant_ : mad scientist/assistant duo who wear Marlon Brando outfits
> 
> In addition, the awkward trick-or-treat stop is a homage to Bob's Burgers, which has done a couple of gags like that. Always makes me laugh my ass off. 
> 
> Kippah = yarmulke = the skullcap that some Jewish people (often, but not always, men) wear on their heads to pray and/or all the time. 
> 
> Dane's moment of YouTube fame is courtesy of [vonquestenberg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vonquestenberg/pseuds/vonquestenberg), who suggested it in the comments on Chapter 16. Thanks again! :) 
> 
> [This](http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2012/cbb/blog/120604/twins-440.jpg) is the picture in Monique's wallet. Yes, those are the kids who played J-Lo's sons in What to Expect when You're Expecting. Thanks, Google Images! And last but not least, [lumateranlibrarian](lumateranlibrarian.tumblr.com) drew me a fantastic fanart of Dane and Kosher, which you can see here:  
>   
> Is it not glorious? You should leave her feedback by [reblogging](http://lumateranlibrarian.tumblr.com/post/136369620329/dane-and-kosher-reunite-after-several-months-apart) or squeeing to her or something, for she is awesome. 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as godihatethisfreakingcat.


	21. Where Thou Feedest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Hanukkah, oh, Hanukkah, come light the...you know what, hold that thought.

Rain poured down outside, splattering the window to Theo’s bedroom so that the front yard looked like an Impressionist painting through the glass. “I love rain,” he said, and pulled Bill a little closer. There was only so close that Bill could come without hitting the computer in Theo’s lap, but a man could dream and be cuddly. “Are you sleeping?” 

“Trying,” said Bill, who had his face smushed so far into the pillow that only his hair, one ear, and part of his chin was visible. “You keep waking me up. I work nights, you know.” 

“Mm, yeah,” said Theo, “but you weren’t working last night. You got home at a reasonable hour. No excuses this time, you slug.” He gently rubbed the back of Bill’s neck, still prickly from his last haircut the week before. “Still catching up on that missed sleep? I can stop bothering you if you want.” 

Bill yawned loudly. “You’re not bothering me,” he said, and rolled over onto his side. Red marks had formed next to his nose from the pillow’s folds. “What? Do I look a complete prat?” 

Theo set his lap desk off to the side, slid all the way under the covers, and cupped Bill’s chin in his hands as he pressed their noses together. “Never,” he said. “You always look great.” Their foreheads bumped when he kissed Bill, but Bill’s lips eagerly opened and the tongue was well worth the squeeze. 

Bill made a noise of discomfort and pushed away from Theo after far too little kissing time had elapsed. “Your breath is boiling hot,” he said by way of explanation, so Theo guessed he’d probably been pouting without realizing it. “It’s getting my face sweaty.” He curled up with his head under Theo’s chin, with the smell of his clean hair (shampooed as of last night) wafting up into Theo’s nose. Bill used that honey shampoo from Lush and it made him smell pretty much exactly like he should. Even Freddy said he smelled sweet when Bill put him on his shoulders. 

Theo rubbed Bill’s back, over which his husband had on a baggy blue cotton sweater he’d made about ten years ago by his reckoning, stretched approximately to hell and back by the washing machine. “Well,” he said, “far be it from me to interrupt your afternoon nap and then breathe fire on you. Anything I can do to make up for it?” 

“Mm, no. I think you’ve done enough for me already. We’ve got a Sunday afternoon to ourselves – what more could I want?” Bill kissed his Adam’s apple. “You’re all over stubble, you know.” 

“What? I just shaved this morning.” Theo maneuvered his free hand out from where it lay trapped under his body and touched his neck with his fingertips. Great. Bill was right; while he’d slashed and burned the Black Forest to the best of his ability, it was indeed coming back. “Dammit. Jewish genes strike again. You think I need to shave again before the party?” 

“No, not at all. It’s a Hanukkah party. That means we’re celebrating the Jewish genes, doesn’t it?” Bill kissed the chest hair at the top of Theo’s pajama shirt, which he hadn’t changed out of yet, despite the fact that it was soaked in old sweat from his weird dreams the night before. At least it didn’t seem like Bill minded. “I like them very much.” 

Theo lay back farther on the pillow and took Bill with him. “That’s one way to look at it,” he said, “but you need to remember it’s at Danny’s house and he’s hairless. Can’t let him see me looking ‘unkempt’ or anything, can I?” He laid his arm up over his head to combat a burgeoning cramp – he’d have to switch positions soon. 

“You’re right,” said Bill. “Do you want to sit back up? You’ve started shifting in place again.” 

“Okay.” If his career ever crashed and burned, maybe Theo would have to consider going into nursing, if it made people that observant. He didn’t think he’d been moving at all. “You don’t mind if I type, do you? Don’t know if you wanted to go back to sleep.” 

Bill moved to lie on his back. “What time is it?” 

Theo looked at the clock radio. “Three. We have to be at the party by six.” 

“All right, then, I’m not going back to sleep.” Bill sat up with a series of truncated movements and a lot of grunting. “Oh, bugger all, I’ve got to start going to the gym or something. What were you doing on the computer before you decided to get clingy?” 

“Checking the Darrens blogs,” Theo said. The laptop had, in its previous life, been his gaming computer, but he’d rescued the thing from a life of Phil’s sticky fingers over the summer so he could do just this: clatter around on the Internet without having to do it in the cold study away from Bill (that and communicate from England without paying for use of the business computers). “The fans are getting so stir-crazy for the next book, they’re coming up with wacky theories about who I am again.” 

“Oh, really? What sort?” 

Theo sat up, adjusted his pillow behind his back, and reached for the computer. “I can tell you about some of them,” he said. “They’re really out there. I mean, seriously not-safe-for-work out there.” 

Bill loudly blew the breath out of his cheeks. “All right, now I have to hear these,” he said, sitting up and cuddling next to Theo again. “Read on. I’m too knackered to focus on the screen.” 

Theo smiled, shook his head, and pulled up a Tumblr he’d stumbled across while Googling himself, something called _fuckyeahtddarrens_. “Okay, there’s this whole comment thread going about how I’m really two men’s rights activists living in their moms’ basements collaborating with each other.” Fan art of his own characters gazed out at him from the website’s header, sultry and not entirely out of character, he had to admit. He could pinpoint the exact scene that the artist of one particular Liam/Farouk art had used as inspiration, and writing it had made him hot, too. Good to see he wasn’t the only one. 

“How on Earth did they get ‘men’s rights activist’ from your work?” Bill asked, squinting at the computer. The screen cast a pale blue light onto his face that made him look kind of sickly when you factored in the squint and the bedhead (and bedface). “And two of you? One is complex enough to analyze already.” 

“Thanks.” Theo rubbed his nose against Bill’s ear. “No, they’re comparing my earlier work with my later work and contrasting the relative lack of sex scenes in the early stuff. Seriously, listen to this. ‘T.D. Darrens’s earlier work, as compared to his output of the last ten years, contains a relative dearth of sex scenes. Those that do exist bespeak an entirely different style that suggests either a vast change of heart since then or the work of two individuals.’ Since when did fans start using this academic crap?” It could have come out of one of his own papers from his time as a PhD student, minus talk about sex scenes. He’d tried to be a little classier back then. 

Now Bill gave a disbelieving snort and screwed up his entire face. “That’s a horrid argument. Do they not realize that you’ve, I don’t know, _aged_ since then?” 

“Seriously,” Theo agreed. “And my sex scenes are not that different. I just write more kinds of couples now.” 

“You mean fewer male-on-male sex scenes and more variety?” 

“Exactly,” Theo said, “but you can’t blame me for writing the stuff from my own spank bank when I was twenty-five.” He scrolled down a little, one finger on the keypad, and stopped when another piece of fanart came up. “You’ll want to look at this one, Bill. Remember that one scene from _The Souls That Remain?_ ” 

Bill edged forward. “You’ll have to remind me which… _oh_.” With an audible intake of breath, his lips parted and hung open. “That’s…very true to life. Talented artist. Yes.” 

Theo looked at the comforter over Bill’s lap, but unfortunately, he couldn’t see any evidence of an erection – either the bedclothes covered it adequately or Bill was only at half-mast. Damn. “I agree. Tell you what, if I ever find out who that artist is, I’ll recommend them to the art department at the university. I’m sure they draw things that aren’t dick pics.” 

“How very generous,” said Bill, eyebrows raised. “ _Moving on_. What other sorts of strange theories are out there? I’d like to hear some more.” Thunder boomed outside the window and a clap of lightning illuminated the room; Bill momentarily closed his eyes, and Theo petted him. “Hate thunder. It always hurts my ears.” 

“I know. I could get you some earplugs for rainy nights,” Theo offered. “Dee uses them on the weekends so the boys don’t wake her up.” 

“No, that’s all right. Thanks for the offer, though.” Bill cuddled back into Theo’s side. “Keep going.” 

Theo scrolled through a couple of pages, but it seemed like the fan Tumblr didn’t have too many crackpot theories today, so he went to Google and typed in ‘t d darrens theories’ instead. “There we go.” He clicked on the first forum page that came up. “This one’s interesting. This fan’s pissed off that _The Valley of the Bones_ took longer to publish than the last couple of books did, so they’ve got a theory going that I’m dead and got replaced with a ghostwriter.” 

“Not knowing that you’d rather be shot, of course,” said Bill, mouth against Theo’s shoulder. His words came out warm through the shirt. “Ghostwriter, my arse.” 

“I think I know where this came from,” Theo said. “Let’s face it, I’ve been a little more busy since the last book came out.” _Oma’s Shoes_ , a ghost story set in East Germany just after the descent of the Iron Curtain, had been published a couple of months before he met Bill. In the ensuing year it took for him to get his research collated and write a good chunk of another book, his agent Octavia had been all over him to get her an outline, but he’d come through – on Geula’s four-month birthday, actually. He’d thought that very appropriate. 

“Mm. Meeting me, having me move in with you, dead brother-in-law, sister’s new flame, nearly getting killed by neo-Nazis in a parking lot…” 

Theo couldn’t help laughing, and Bill joined him. “I think the neo-Nazis are the biggest factor in the delay,” Theo admitted. “I _never_ want to rush publication like that again. It nearly killed me. Next time I try to delay finishing edits when it’s not a life-or-death situation, hit me.” 

“That’s easy enough to remember,” said Bill dryly. “Not as though there aren’t times you deserve it.” 

“Hey, who’s the one who got us a quiet day before all hell breaks loose tonight?” Theo said. Freddy, after much begging, had been allowed to spend the night with his Aunt Dee, the cousins he adored, and most likely Boaz, since Dinah promised blueberry pancakes for breakfast and she couldn’t make those without scorching the pan. From there, Dinah would take him to the party with the boys and Bill and Theo would take him home after. Theo wouldn’t trade it, but parenting was one hell of a job and he was glad for the day off. 

Bill reached over Theo’s chest and twiddled the laptop’s trackpad with his fingertip. “You,” he said, “but Danny is the one who made sure we wouldn’t have to have a loud, rollicking party here that would jangle your nerves. More theories?” 

“Danny’s got his reasons for hosting a party. They’re not as altruistic as you think, Bill.” Theo obligingly went back to Google and found some more for Bill. “This one says I’m a lesbian.” 

“Well, nothing against lesbians, but what in the bleeding hell would give them that idea?” Bill scooted closer to the screen, jostling Theo’s arm. “You’ve given absolutely no indication that you prefer female couples above all else. If anything, the male-on-male sex scenes should entirely disabuse them of that notion.” 

Theo nodded and clicked out. “I think it’s crazy, too. Whatever, though, it’s funny to look at. And think of it this way: at least they think I handle women well.” Dee deserved all the credit, and maybe a book series of her own, for going over his female characters’ motives, backstories, and thoughts during sex with him. “Got a couple of reviews early on that…weren’t exactly nice.” She criticized a lot less these days and he attributed about ninety percent of his improvement to her careful editing. The other ten percent was probably just the fact that he’d aged. 

Bill pointed. “What’s that?” 

“More fan art. Wait a second.” Theo scrolled back up. “Hold on, no, that’s supposed to be _me_!” This artist had drawn him as a buff blond guy with a suspicious resemblance to the star of BBC’s _Merlin_ , the one who played Arthur. He couldn’t quite remember his name, stupid brain. “Do they really think I’m that young? The math doesn’t add up.” Still flattering, though. 

“I think it’s a bit idealized,” Bill said, a strange note in his voice. “They did get one part of you right, though,” he said with a smirk. “That’s about as long as your cock. Perhaps even a bit shorter.” He reached down and patted Theo’s crotch through the blankets, and Theo shivered. “I’d have to take a look to be sure.” 

“You’re dirty this afternoon.” The origin of the piece seemed to be some kind of erotic T.D. Darrens blog, so in the interest of ‘who the hell would draw smutty pictures of him and where could he get more of it,’ he opened the page. “Here’s lots more, and there’s another one who thinks I’m a woman.” They also thought he had some weight on him, leading to a picture that – aside from coloring – looked eerily like his sister. Nope, he wasn’t lingering on that one. 

Bill burst into laughter at the next picture that appeared. “Is that you wearing nothing but –“ 

“I think I have to talk to the webmaster about this one,” Theo interrupted. Embracing his Judaism was one thing, but drawing a guy wearing nothing but a _tallit_ , a set of _tefillin_ , and a gold Torah scroll on a chain really went beyond the pale. Pale of Settlement, to be punny about it, except he wasn’t feeling punny. “That’s sacred stuff. What kind of _goyische_ idiot thought it’d be a good idea not to do their research?” 

“You just said exactly what they are,” Bill soothed, a hand on Theo’s arm. Theo took in a deep breath and let it out, then closed his eyes and tried to let his heart rate get back to normal. It helped not to look at the picture. “An idiot. Why don’t we move on?” Theo heard him tap the trackpad. “Here’s some fanfiction about you having a tryst with Stephen King.” 

Theo’s eyes shot open and he pulled the computer a little closer to his lap. Bill had steadily started pulling it away. “Would you look at that? ‘A’ for effort, but no points on the title.” He could think of half a dozen better ways to begin a story than actually calling it ‘A Tryst with Stephen King.’ 

“And I hate to think what that affair would do to his wife,” Bill said. “They’re very happily married, if I recall. What would possess him to drop all that and have a ‘tryst’ with you?” 

Theo had a feeling that the word ‘tryst’ was about to become their cue to look at each other and laugh uproariously in public. “He reviewed me once, but it was a two-sentence blurb,” he said. “To him, I’m an incorporeal entity. Nothing would make him drop his wife for that. Not unless he actually gets a boner for ghosts.” 

“Let’s at least have a look at it.” Bill took over the touchpad again and brought up the story. “All right, just by the warnings, it looks as if either you rim the gentleman in question or he rims you. There’s also a mention of…felching? Do you happen to know what that is?” 

Theo did. He may have come of age in the eighties, but he knew his way around a computer and he was no stranger to slash ‘zines. “It’s when you come in someone’s ass and then eat your come out of it,” he explained. “I don’t think I’d be comfortable trying it unless you gave your ass a hell of a wash first.” 

Bill gagged, his throat shivering with it. “’Hell of a wash,’ my left arsecheek. I wouldn’t be comfortable doing that to you even if you had an hour-long enema first. And who thinks that would be sexy when it pertains to Stephen bloody King?” 

“Hardcore fans?” 

“I’m a hardcore fan of yours,” said Bill, “and I still wouldn’t want to do that to you. And you’re more attractive than him, even if he’s been a bestseller for longer. Are there any other stories?” 

“Yup, probably.” Theo clicked to another page. “O _kay_ , there’s another one with me playing tonsil hockey with another author. I don’t look like that at all.” 

Bill groaned and shoved his face into Theo’s armpit, apparently too disgusted by the greater of too evils to be bothered by the smell. “Now they think you’d want to snog Anne Rice. I’ve officially seen it all.” 

Theo jerked his arm away. “Your hair tickles!” He thought about kissing the top of Bill’s head again, but it probably smelled now. “You’ll like this next one.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Bill, but he surfaced anyway. The widening of his eyes told Theo that he was right. “They…got your hair color right this time. The length’s off, of course,” he babbled, “but it’s a start, isn’t it? My…my goodness.” He gave a soft huff. 

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” said Theo. “The most accurate drawing of me whacking off to date, and this one gets the size of my dick wrong.” It was a frontal view, naked from the waist down, and the man in the drawing was obviously enjoying himself a good deal. “They probably wanted to go for more accurate anatomy.” 

“Too bad nothing about you is factory-standard,” said Bill, still faintly. “What I want to know is why these people think they’ve got a right to _my_ husband.” 

Theo rolled his eyes. “Bill, you know you can’t draw worth a damn –“ Then he took a second look, and the meaning of Bill’s words quickly dawned. There was a definite bulge in the blankets over Bill’s crotch now. “Getting possessive, are you?” 

“If I _am_ ,” Bill growled, “I don’t see why you’ve any right to object.” 

“I’m not objecting,” Theo said. He put the computer and desk on the floor (they wouldn’t be at all conducive to the activities he’d begun to plan in the last few seconds), rolled over onto his back, and pulled Bill close. “It’s really hot. Why don’t you get possessive in the hot and heavy way? I’d love that.” 

Bill climbed on top of him and gave him an enthusiastic kiss. Theo closed his eyes and continued it with his lips parted, hands on Bill’s hips – even chubby as Bill was, his hands could cover a big portion of the flesh over his hipbones. Bill wiggled into the touch and reached down, probably attempting to grab Theo’s ass, since he ended up slapping his hands against the side of each buttock. 

Theo was just about to wrap his legs around Bill’s ass and give him a good grind when Bill pulled away. Theo wordlessly groaned his disappointment and opened his eyes in time to see Bill licking away the thread of saliva that connected their mouths. His lips shone red and wet, cheeks and chin already pink from Theo’s beard. “That’s a good start,” he said, “but I’ve got something different in mind.” 

“You want to fuck me?” Theo rasped. His cock was already pulsing with want. “I bought more condoms last week.” 

“Not exactly.” Bill took off his sweater and then his pajama shirt, an oversized tee that advertised a fun run at Veterans’, and settled back down on top of Theo. “I’d rather you fuck me,” he said with his lips against Theo’s ear. “I want to be taken. Get shown exactly how yours I am.” 

Theo cupped the back of Bill’s head. “I can do that,” he said, and kissed him again, hard and messy. Bill pushed up against him and ground his hips against Theo’s with a series of soft whimpers. They’d come plenty of times just rubbing up against each other like this, most memorably the first time Theo took Bill home. The memory made him harder and he felt a few drops of wetness leak from his cock into his pajama pants – this was a very dangerous position for him to be in, he knew. 

“Let’s stop. Don’t want this to end before it starts,” he panted. 

“’Course.” Bill broke off the kiss and sat back up on knees planted to either side of Theo. “Kit off first. Got to touch you.” 

Theo skinned out of his clothes, first the pajama shirt without unbuttoning it and then the drawstring pants, on which his fingers fumbled for a few seconds before he managed to get them off. “You, too. Pants off.” 

Bill kicked off his red, elastic-waisted pants, then wasted no time in lunging forward to bite Theo’s nipples. The rough inside of his thick flannel pajama shirt had sensitized them and Theo squeezed his eyes shut with a deep moan. “God, I love this,” Bill said. He bit one nipple, then began to suck it and to rub two fingers over the other in a small circle. 

“Quit it…quit it! I’ll come!” Theo scraped up enough control of his senses to push Bill’s hands and mouth away, although he mourned the loss. “Okay, condoms and lube. I’m fucking you now.” 

Bill didn’t pout, like Theo probably would have if he’d just been chased away from his husband’s chest. Instead, he got in his hands and knees and canted his ass up in the air, making it wiggle. “Please do. What sorts of lube have we got?” 

Theo twisted his back around to fumble in the bedtable drawer on his side of the bed. His hands were still shaking, damn them, and damn Bill for being so hot. “Uh, plain, thick, warming, lemon splash, and apple cinnamon.” 

“Theodor, I am not a piece of fruit.” 

“I know, I know. But you _are_ a fruit.” Theo pumped his hips a few times so he could get some more blood flowing to his cock before this kind of talk made him flaccid. “I’ll go with thick. You want a lubed condom or non-lubed?” He pulled a few of each out of the drawer and tossed them onto the bed. 

“Non-lubed,” said Bill. “I want to feel you. Have me on my stomach.” He lay down in the mess of the covers with his legs spread and his head turned sideways on the pillow, gazing into Theo’s eyes. His pupils had dilated and what hazel was left around the black was darkened, too. Theo could only imagine how much harder Bill was with that piece of exhibitionism. 

His fucking hands _still_ shook, so Theo pulled the scissors out of the bedtable drawer, too, and sliced open a condom packet. “You want one, too?” 

“Oh, why not?” 

“And I can put it on you with my mouth.” He was a champ at that. Bill’s cock was about average in size from what he remembered from his more promiscuous days, but it was thick enough that Theo felt like an Olympic medalist when he deep-throated it. _And the gold metal for gag-free fellatio goes to…Theodor Derensky!_ The thought made him snicker. 

Bill raised his head and blinked at him, one eyebrow up. “Give the condom here. What are you laughing about now?” 

“Nothing.” Theo tossed him another condom and watched hungrily while Bill tore the packet open, lifted his hips, and eased the latex down his length with his eyes squeezed shut – probably trying not to come. “Fingering?” he asked. 

Now sufficiently suited up, Bill ground his hips into the bed and choked out “ _Briefly!_ ” into the pillow, then abruptly stopped grinding and shivered instead. “Fuck, near miss.” 

“Okay, hold on.” Theo dripped some lube onto his fingers and got behind Bill; his shadow fell across Bill’s back, and suddenly, a strange feeling of power overwhelmed him. The rain, falling suddenly heavier, probably had something to do with it; he could be the Beast in Beauty and the Beast or Dracula, or any big, strong man who made women swoon, only without the inherent abuse and the women both. What would that make Bill, then? Belle? 

Bill threw out his foot and kicked Theo in the thigh. “Oi! Stop gawking and fuck me!” 

“Ow.” Maybe he really _was_ Belle. Theo rubbed his thigh with his dry hand, settled back behind Bill again, and spread the cheeks of his ass, then slid two lube-wet fingers into him. Bill immediately tightened and cried out something muffled that Theo couldn’t make out. “What was that?” 

“I said that’s more like it!” Bill spread his legs apart even farther and squeezed Theo’s fingers. “B-bloody fucking hurry up and put it in me. I won’t last.” He tossed his head from side to side on the pillow and a flush traveled from the back of his neck down to the backs of his thighs. 

Theo curled his fingers and bent over Bill as far as his back would allow. “Love you. Love all of you.” He kissed Bill’s shoulders and back, then planted a line of kisses down his spine, spreading his fingers apart until Bill shook under him. “Even the freckles on your ass.” 

“Stop. _Talking_.” Bill gritted out the words between audibly-grinding teeth. “Fuck me or…or I’ll kick you again. In the testicles.” 

Bill’s aim was usually crappy, but Theo didn’t want to risk it. For all he knew, Bill had meant to kick him in the testicles the first time, had missed, and was now determined that practice would make perfect. “Love that, too.” He withdrew his fingers, picked up the condom, and rolled it onto his erection, already purple-red and nearly pressing against his stomach. 

His husband spread his arms out to either side in a letter-T shape, probably to anchor himself. “I can hear that. Get in me.” 

Theo squeezed the tip of the condom to make sure there was room for the inevitable results and spread one hand out on Bill’s hip for some leverage. Then he took his cock in his other hand and eased it into Bill, extending himself to lie forward with his weight over Bill’s back. 

Bill squeezed around his dick and Theo’s eyes squeezed shut to compensate for how fucking good it felt. “That’s more like it!” said Bill, who had obviously decided to top from the bottom today in the literal and the figurative way. “Now move.” 

With an undulation of his hips, Theo did as he was told, now with both of his hands on Bill’s hips from the side. Maybe he’d bruise, but Bill would probably stop him before it got to that point. For now, he purred and bit Bill’s shoulder while he slid in and out with controlled thrusts. No way was he giving over all the power when Bill had been so demanding. 

Bill stiffened with every movement of Theo’s hips, and his hands clawed at the sheets. “Fuck,” he whined, then over and over, “fuck, fuck, oh, fuck, Theo, go on, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ it all!” He brought his ass up and down, and from his moans when he did it, Theo knew he was giving himself a prostate massage on his cock. 

Theo closed his eyes and imagined the wet spot that Bill would leave on the sheets if he wasn’t wearing a condom, thick, spreading more every second, and smelling like him. Bill leaked copiously, especially when he was so turned on that he threatened to come within minutes, just like right now. “Mmm, _Bill_ ,” he groaned into Bill’s neck. 

“Going…to…” Bill choked. 

He tightened his grip on Bill’s hips, ready for a roller-coaster ride of an orgasm, and Bill didn’t disappoint. He shivered and bounced with the strength of it, bucking up against Theo and then down, his cock grinding into the mattress. “Oh, _fuck!_ ” he cried. “Fuck, Theo!” Then his voice turned to a high, wordless wail. 

But he had the presence of mind to tighten around Theo’s cock, evil man that he was. Theo’s balls tightened and his whole body clenched, and he came harder than he had in…how long? He couldn’t think. “Jesus!” Over and over, he frantically kissed Bill’s back and shoulders, which still sweated and shivered in the aftermath of his climax. 

He was too damn tired to speak, and Bill had to be, too. For a while, the sound of both of their heavy breathing filled the room, and while Theo knew that his breath on Bill’s neck was probably making Bill sweatier, he was too comfortable to move or to pull out. 

“You’re crushing me,” Bill finally said hoarsely. “Move.” 

Well, well, the bossiness wasn’t just for sex today. “Sure, sorry,” said Theo. He pulled out and got onto his knees, then flopped down beside Bill and cuddled him aggressively, a position that mostly just involved his arms around him with Bill’s head tucked below his chin again. “You enjoy yourself?” 

“ _Yes_.” Bill kissed Theo’s neck. “I love you, Theo.” He paused, then completely disregarding the warmth in Theo’s chest that had to be manifesting as warmth in his neck and face, said “What time is it?” 

The sweat on Theo’s body suddenly felt a lot colder and clammier than it had in the immediate afterglow, which he took to mean that Bill had just killed the mood. Fucking medical professionals and their stupid professional outlook everywhere. “Don’t know.” He disengaged and looked at the clock. “Four-thirty.” 

“We have time for showers, then,” Bill said. “I think we both need them.” 

“Yeah, showering isn’t optional. Do you want this bathroom? I can take the one down the hall.” His water heater was big enough to facilitate two people showering at once. The water heater that came with the house when he moved in had been dinky as hell, and as soon as he was settled in, that was the first thing he’d fixed. 

Bill shrugged. “We can shower together as long as you don’t try to grope me in there,” he said, and took off his condom. “It’ll be faster that way.” 

“I know.” Theo took the condom out of Bill’s hand, peeled off his own, then tied them off and walked to the bathroom to throw them into the wastebasket. It was just lucky for him that both cats saw fit to avoid sex smells; otherwise, he would have feared having Freddy see Rug or Carpet prance around with a condom dangling out of his mouth. “Hey,” he said, “how are you doing on shampoo and conditioner? I’m running a little low.” 

“Oh, you can use mine,” said Bill. Theo smiled; Bill didn’t need to ask why he’d asked, not after two and a half years together. “Come on, then. I’d like to try some of that new soap of yours, actually. What is it, sandalwood?” 

Theo had bought it for the sexy description of its scent, which brought to mind a redwood forest about as much as York Peppermint Patties made him think about standing on a frozen mountaintop after he watched those commercials. “Something like that, I think. Maybe cedar. I don’t mind if you use it. Want me to go run the shower?” 

“Please.” 

“Okay.” Theo went back to the bed and kissed Bill’s forehead, then walked to the bathroom again to go run the shower. It was a good thing he and Bill had come to enough of an understanding about what constituted an ideal shower temperature over the course of their time together, or they never would have been able to do this. He’d had to convince Bill that cold showers weren’t actually for human use, the weirdo. 

Bill came into the bathroom right as Theo was stepping into the shower. Theo obligingly held the door open for him. “Oh, thanks,” said Bill, and came in with him. The steam immediately misted his curls with tiny droplets that looked like morning frost in the sun. “Chuck me the shampoo?” 

Theo passed the bottle over with a snort; those used to be loaded words. The first time Bill had asked him to chuck something in the shower, he’d actually thrown it over, which led to him accidentally conking Bill in the side of the head with a bar of soap. _Excuse the fuck out of me for taking you at your word_ , he’d said, but only after he apologized. 

“Thanks.” Bill poured some out and then gave the bottle back to Theo. “So what are your feelings on your role tonight?” he said conversationally as he worked the shampoo into his hair. “I trust you won’t make a scene.” 

Theo took some of the shampoo, wet his hair, and started scrubbing. “Keep everyone from laughing at me and I won’t need to make a scene.” He closed his eyes and scratched his scalp with his fingertips; it was chronically dry and itchy at this time of year, despite the unseasonally-warm El Nino weather. 

“What?” 

Theo raised his voice. “Just don’t let people laugh at me!” He always forgot about the muffling effects of shower water until Bill had to shout to be heard, or ask him to do the same. 

“They won’t,” said Bill. “I promise.” He took his soap off its little shelf and started scrubbing. “Well, maybe I can’t promise that. If they laugh at you, I’ll give them what for. How’s that?” 

Theo gave him a grateful butt-bump. “Perfect.” 

They finished the rest of their shower in relative silence; the water really was too loud to allow for a conversation. When they were done, Theo stepped out first and handed Bill a towel. “I should call Dee,” he said, rubbing his hair with another one, “and make sure everything’s okay with Freddy.” 

“You already rang her,” said Bill from the depths of his own towel. 

“That was this morning. I should do it again.” Theo squeezed as much water out of his hair as he could and swiftly dried the rest of his body, then wrapped the towel around his waist and went back into the bedroom. The cold air made him shiver, and on the way to the bedtable, where he’d stashed his phone, his eyes fell on something folded next to the bed: his costume for the night. 

Who knew that they actually made blue Jewish Santa costumes? Not him. Or at least not him until he’d gone online after the British cousins roped him into doing some kind of Santa thing for Freddy’s first Hanukkah, “just to ease him into it.” Apparently, just having Theo do Santa in front of the tree on Christmas morning wouldn’t be enough for Freddy, who was used to Olly or Ads dressing up and parading around in front of the kids. 

Fine, that was reasonable, but Danny’s reaction wasn’t. “You want to do _what_ at my Hanukkah party?” he’d gasped. It took Theo the better part of two hours to convince him that no, Jewish Santa was not some kind of affront to all the pain their ancestors had suffered; it was for Freddy, and besides, it would do all the kids good to be a little multicultural. Not just the kids, either, hint hint. 

Danny had gotten the hint, so with much grumbling, he’d given Theo permission to do the damn Jewish Santa. _And here we are_ , Theo thought, glaring at the costume. Yeah, he knew he was going to make an idiot of himself – realistically, there was no way he wouldn’t – but he hoped he wouldn’t hear about it for years to come. ‘It’s for Freddy’ might do the trick. He shook his head, picked up the phone, and hit Dee’s number on speed-dial. 

She picked up after two rings. “Theo?” 

“Hey,” he said. “How’s Freddy doing?” 

“Behaving himself exactly the same as he was this morning,” said Dinah. “Oh, and he ate three blueberry pancakes and two chocolate-chip ones. How the hell does he do it, and where the hell does he fit it all? That’s the skinniest five-year-old I’ve ever seen.” 

Theo shook his head and sat down on the bed, letting his towel drop. “I think being a big eater runs in the family. For how much Bill eats, you’d think he’d be Benny’s size.” He stopped as a thought occurred to him. “Why are you telling me this? He didn’t get sick, did he?” 

“Oh, no. I was just amazed.” 

“Good.” Theo wiped away the drops of water that threatened to run down his forehead and into his eyebrows. “So what have the boys been doing all afternoon?” 

“Theo,” Bill yelled from the bathroom, “have you seen my comb? It’s not where I left it.” 

Theo interrupted his sister with an apologetic “Hold on, Dee,” and put his hand over the phone, an old habit that he couldn’t break despite the fact that he didn’t think his smartphone actually had mouth holes. “I thought it was next to your spray-on hair stuff!” 

Bill huffed and Theo saw him put his hands on his hips through the doorway, pursing his lips and glaring at the bathroom counter. “I already looked there. Nothing.” 

“Check the floor,” Theo advised him. “I think Carpet likes to knock things off tables and stuff and play with them. That’s where I found my reading glasses last week.” He hated having to wear reading glasses, but it was well past time to admit that he needed them when he used the computer late at night, so they had reluctant pride of place in his study next to the keyboard. 

Bill bent over, and with an “oh,” came back up with the little spray bottle in his hand. “Thanks, Theo. I’ll have to have a word with Carpet.” 

“Try, yeah, but he’s not going to listen to you.” Theo lay down on the bed and went back to his phone call. “Sorry, Bill needed help finding his hair stuff. What were you saying?” 

“No problem. Boaz made the pancakes,” she said. “I don’t know if I told you that.” 

He shook his head so that his damp hair spread out across the comforter instead of bunching up under his head. “Thought so. One person can’t get all the cooking talent in that family and you’re not so great at pancakes. What else did you guys do?” 

Now she laughed, a soft, amused chuckle. “Okay, after we ate, Phil and Caleb decided they had to teach Freddy about his ‘adopted heritage,’ and those are actually the words they used. So they took him upstairs and tried to teach him Hebrew.” 

“Are they nuts? _Their_ Hebrew isn’t even that great.” 

“I know,” she said. “Poor Freddy just ended up confused, so then Boaz got out the flour and we made homemade Play-Doh. And that’s what we’ve been doing for most of the day. Actually, I should probably get Freddy in the bath. He got Play-Doh in his hair.” 

“That’s a funny image,” Theo said with a smile. “What color?” 

He could practically feel her blinking in confusion. “Why the hell do you want to know that?” 

“Humor me, Dee. I’d love something humorous.” There he went, punning again. 

“Yellow. I think he was trying to make himself a crown.” 

Somehow, Theo doubted they had a miniature egomaniac on their hands, so it was probably safe to assume that Freddy was just being cute. With his historical line of work, the lines could get kind of blurred. “What time is it now?” he asked, and immediately realized that he sounded just like Bill, dammit. 

“Five,” said Dinah. 

“Okay, plenty of time to get him in the shower. Thanks for letting me bug you, Dee. I’ll see you at the party?” 

“Yep, sure thing. You have your presents all ready, right? Just making sure.” 

Theo looked around the room at the blue-and-silver-wrapped packages stacked around the bookcase and snorted. “The past week’s been like an infestation, Dee,” he told her, “presents multiplying like the stupid ladybugs in the walls.” The annual winter descent of ladybugs upon unsuspecting houses drove Bill nuts, which was the one perk of an otherwise annoying and slightly creepy house pest. At least Rug and Carpet were fond of eating the bugs that fell into the sink. “Got some for all the kids and general food gifts for the adults.” 

“That’ll work,” she said. “Okay, Theo, I need to bathe your son.” 

“He’s not my son,” said Theo. He wouldn’t deprive Freddy of his parents, no matter how much he wished the kid had been his and Bill’s from birth. 

“Well, he acts like it, so I’m calling him that. Love you, Theo. Talk to you later.” 

The call ended before he could say good-bye. “Rude,” he said to the phone, but that was a harried parent for you. “Freddy got homemade Play-Doh in his hair,” he told Bill, who looked to have finished up his gelling routine and was now washing his hands. “Dee’s giving him a bath.” 

“Oh, dear,” Bill groaned. “I hope it doesn’t take that much shampooing to get it out.” 

“It’s Play-Doh, not gum.” Theo massaged his stomach. How long had it been since he’d eaten? It had to be hours. The last time he remembered putting anything in his belly was…okay, he’d eaten some cereal and fruit when he fed Rug and Carpet, and so did Bill, so that was at least six hours ago. “Do you want to go eat something downstairs?” he asked. 

Bill cocked his head. “Could do, yeah,” he said. “Should we dress first?” 

“No,” Theo said, “we’ll have to come back up here to get the presents anyway, and that fucking Santa suit. Let’s just go do some naked munching and then do the necessary stuff.” 

“Naked munching,” Bill repeated with a roll of his eyes, but he obligingly came downstairs with Theo anyway and didn’t even make a fuss about the living-room curtains hanging open. Not that anyone could see anything from where they were (and Theo knew that from experience, since their nakedness had once surprised Dwight when he surprised them with a visit), but it was nice that he wasn’t fussing, all the same. 

Bill only protested when Theo grabbed the packaged pastrami out of the fridge and started to pile it onto a slice of bread. “Theo, there’ll be food at the party,” he said. “You shouldn’t fill up on sandwiches now.” 

Theo squirted some spicy brown mustard onto his other slice of bread and slammed it down on top of his mile-high meat stack. “Food,” he said. “Yeah, Danny’s low-fat intestinal contents. I’m playing it smart. And safe.” He set the mustard down on the counter and nudged it towards Bill. “So should you.” 

Bill looked from the bottle to Theo and back again, sucked on his top lip, and took the loaf of bread off the counter with an extremely aggrieved sigh. “Intestinal contents is rather a strong way of putting it,” he said as he untwisted the twist-tie and took out some rye. “Don’t insult Danny’s cooking.” 

“Who’s talking about _cooking_? It’s an alternative to thermonuclear war the way Danny cooks.” Theo took a big bite of his sandwich. Jews really had invented the best food. From diners to delis, everyone wanted a taste of his people, except only in the metaphorical way. Too bad Danny hadn’t gotten the memo.

Bill bogarted the pastrami and made himself a sandwich almost as tall as Theo’s, which he would’ve gotten Jew points for if he hadn’t taken the carrots out and insisted that they both eat ‘a full serving,’ thereby shunting himself into the Jewish _mother_ category. Theo ate the damn things anyway, because at least baby carrots were tastier than the container of leftover mixed salad that had sat in the back of the fridge for the past week. 

When they’d finished, Bill started the dishwasher and then they headed back upstairs to get dressed. Bill had been way too busy – as had Theo – to make Theo a winter sweater this year, so Theo pulled on the one Bill had given him for his birthday two years ago. Freddy had gotten a Hanukkah sweater from Bill, but Theo could hardly begrudge him that. “Did we get presents for your side, too?” he asked, buckling his belt. They’d sent over a bunch of gift baskets to England last year. This year, though, his book was coming out on Christmas Day, and he expected that the media frenzy would make him forget. 

“Yes,” said Bill from inside the sweater he’d half-pulled over his head, “I sent some Harry and David packages over to the inn for Bandy and Peggy to parcel out. Too knackered to try to remember everyone’s addresses this year. I think those two will like playing Santa, anyway.” 

Theo stepped into his shoes. “You’re not gonna get any argument from me,” he said. Anything that reduced mental stress was a good idea, in his opinion. “Early Christmas presents – that should make everyone happy.” He picked up an armful of packages, tested their weight, and then grabbed another armful. “Hey, if you can get the door, I think we can get these out to the car in one trip.” 

“Did you feed the cats?” 

“Fuck,” said Theo, put down the packages, and ran downstairs to get Rug and Carpet some wet food. Rug was already at his bowl, of course, but he wasn’t aggrieved enough at the wait to get bitey, so Theo scratched his head and let Rug rub the corners of his mouth against his hand. “Does a good boy want a delicious chicken dinner? I bet you do.” 

Rug did, and after administering said dinner, Theo beat it back to his room, where he found Bill assembling stacks of packages in two of his big, reusable cloth grocery bags. “Oh, you’re back,” Bill said without looking up. “I thought this might be a better solution than having us potentially dislocate our shoulders. Can you help me with the last of them?” 

“Sure,” said Theo, and bent to help with the boxes and bags. “So remind me what we got for everyone? I remember there’s the toys for Freddy and that teddy bear for Geula. Galil’s getting…” His brain blanked out for a moment, but then he remembered. “…that set of Sculpey for his little models. What did you decide we should get Phil and Caleb again?” 

“Plenty of yarn for Caleb.” Bill put the last few boxes in Theo’s bag. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember. I was the one who chose that. Phil is getting a coupon for glassblowing lessons in Boston, and I made sure that was okay with Dinah first.” 

“That’s a great present,” said Theo. “He’ll like that. I said I’d teach him how to forge, but he didn’t want to.” Caleb would be the one who followed Theo’s forging footsteps, if he guessed correctly. His second nephew had always been the one to emulate and admire his older relatives, even if he could sometimes get explosive about defending them. Case in point: both Bill and Dwight taught Caleb how to knit. Theo figured Dwight, having known Caleb since he was born, took pride of place, even though Bill was a much better knitter. 

They took Theo’s stupid Santa suit and the bags, one for each of them, down to the car, and Theo locked the front door. The rain had slowed down to a mist, and in the near-full dark, the puddles on the street and driveway shone like black oil. “Bit cold out here tonight,” said Bill with a shiver. 

“Not as bad as it could be,” said Theo, even though after seven years in America, Bill had to know that. He guessed English blood never could thicken enough to survive over here like an American could. “It’s El Nino. That’s why it’s unseasonable like this.” 

“What’s that?” Bill asked. 

“Hold on a second. I’ll tell you in the car.” It was warm for December, but it was also too cold to stand out in the cold and talk about the weather. He started the car as soon as they were both buckled in and, as he backed out of the driveway, said “It’s something to do with the jet stream, not sure exactly what. I never took any environmental science.” 

Bill nodded. “If you’re truly interested, I could see if anyone at work has any idea,” he offered, “but I don’t think you are.” 

He was right, so they dropped the subject and spent the rest of the ten-minute drive to Danny’s house quiet, with Bill humming and tapping his fingers against the window. Theo knew he would have to be on his best behavior, because although Danny was fussy, it was still his home and it was only polite to keep his fussiness from getting irritated. He was generous to a fault, after all. How could they not return the favor? 

Danny had electric menorahs in his windows, giving off cheerful yellow-and-orange light, and Theo saw blue and silver decorations hanging up in his living room through the windows. “He likes to decorate,” he said by way of explanation. 

“I know, Theodor,” said Bill, amused. “You do remember he decorated for our wedding, yes? And he spent the time before the wedding telling me all about it in excruciating detail.” 

“I remember, William,” Theo mimicked. “Time to get out, I guess. Hope Danny doesn’t get mad at us for not bringing food.” 

Bill hit his forehead with the heels of both hands. “ _That’s_ what I forgot to do today!” he cried. “I meant to bring some sort of dessert and I fucking forgot! Danny will never forgive me – I _know_ he likes what I cook.” 

Theo burst into a brief spate of laughter. Bill’s expression and angst over not remembering to bring some damn _sufganiyot_ or whatever were way too funny. “Bill,” he said, patting Bill’s back, “Danny’s not going to get mad. And if he does, he’ll be faking and I’ll still give him the finger. Okay?” 

“But I’m a dreadful friend.” 

“You’re _not_. You’ll just be a dreadful friend if you sit in the car and bellyache instead of going to the party and having a good time. Ready?” 

Bill reluctantly agreed that he was, so Theo got the bags of presents out of the trunk and the two of them went up the wet walkway with their cargo. The door was closed, but it opened easily when Theo tried the knob, and he walked into the house with his eyes closed so he could better appreciate the familiar onion-and-bread-crumbs smell of Jewish cooking. “Anyone home?” That was weird. Danny should have been rushing out to help them, knowing him. 

“Hello!” someone called back, and Benny trotted out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a white apron covered in oily stains. “Theo and Bill, lovely to see ye! How’s your day been? Sorry I can’t give you hugs, but I’m a bit greasy at the moment.” 

“We understand,” said Bill. “Are you cooking, Benny? I thought Danny was meant to be cooking.” 

“Yeah, where _is_ Danny, anyway?” Theo asked. “Shouldn’t he be down here, overseeing party stuff?” 

Benny pointed up the gray-carpeted stairs. “Danny’s havin’ a bit of a lie-down before the party starts,” he said. “Good thing for him. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to bring in the real food without him shoutin’ at me.” He winked pointedly. 

Maybe they wouldn’t have to subsist on low-fat stuff tonight after all. Theo could almost feel himself perk up at the thought. “What kind of real food are you bringing in?” He crossed the fingers of one hand behind his back and prayed that it wasn’t gefilte fish or that spinach Jell-O. His love for Benny Budin’s cooking would only stretch so far. 

“Latkes,” said Benny, and dusted his hands against each other. “Cooked ‘em earlier, only got to give ‘em a bit of a warm-up now. Real latkes, not the sort Danny’s tried to cook for tonight.” He mournfully shook his head. “The things that man did to innocent potatoes in the name o’ heart health, they’re criminal, Theo.” 

“Goodness, I really should have brought dessert, then,” Bill said. “Terribly sorry, Benny. Baking completely slipped my mind. Is there anything I can do to help in the kitchen now?” 

“Me, too,” Theo said. “I don’t want to stand around and do nothing.” 

Benny rubbed a palm against his chin in contemplation; when he took it away, his beard shone. Jesus Christ, he really wasn’t kidding about the grease. “Could use a bit of help with the dishes,” he said. “Danny’s got a couple of tables set up in the dining room. Want to put the plastic ware on ‘em?” 

“That works. Where’s the stuff you want us to set up?” 

“Come with me.” Benny took them to the kitchen and showed them stacks of paper plates and napkins plus a few boxes of plastic utensils covering a stretch of countertop. “You’re lifesavers, the both o’ you. There’s enough to leave some out here, too, just in case people want to eat standing.” He pointed to their bundles. “Leave those here an’ I’ll hide that outfit under Danny’s desk in his workroom.” 

“You got it,” said Theo, and took a bunch of plates and napkins. Bill grabbed the utensils, and they started setting the tables in the dining room, both of which were covered in blue Hanukkah-themed plastic tablecloths. “Danny has a nice set-up in here. Think there’s a kids’ table and an adults’ table, or can we self-determine that?” 

Bill put together a few place settings at blinding speed. It might, Theo thought, be a good idea for him just to stick to the plates so he wouldn’t get in Bill’s way. This must have been from having to set up for all those relatives. “I’m sure whatever arrangement Danny has in mind will be just fine.” 

“Oh, _shit!_ ” said Noah. _Noah?_ Theo looked at Bill, who shrugged, and then headed back to the stairs in time to see Noah run down them and skid into the front hall in his sockfeet. “You won’t believe what I just saw!” he yowled. “ _No one_ should see what I just saw. Fuck!” 

“Okay, fine,” said Theo. “What did you see?” 

Noah wrapped his arms around himself and shivered theatrically, eyes fixed on the floor. “Danny naked,” he said in a faint voice. “Danny naked and having Skype sex with Brian Feldman. I need bleach for my eyes. And my brain.” 

“ _Danny_ was having Skype sex before a party?” said Theo, incredulous. “That doesn’t sound like him. Is Brian blackmailing him or what?” Okay, it was an exaggeration, but dammit, no one knew what Brian did all day. He was like that spell from Harry Potter, where any Muggle who tried to get too close to a magically-warded location would drift off in the other direction, having completely forgotten what they were looking for. Only with Brian, it came with a disconcerting smile and a soft ‘Never you mind the boring inner workings of American diplomacy.’ 

“Brian had some sort of work thing come up,” Bill said, suddenly next to Theo. “Dinah told me he couldn’t be here when she picked Freddy up.” 

“Yeah, that,” said Noah. He shuddered all over again. “Danny was whacking off. _Danny_. And I saw Brian’s junk. He has droopy old man balls and his pubes are like a fucking snowbank –“ 

Bill cut him off with a sharp movement of his hand, looking revolted. “Thank you ever so much, Noah,” he said in his most British tone, “I don’t think I need to hear about our mutual friend’s genitalia. That will be quite enough.” 

Noah sighed. “But it’s completely fucked up,” he said. “Brian’s only what, fifty? Does he have that weird aging disease or something?” 

“If he had, he would have been dead by age ten or twelve,” said Bill. “I think it’s time to move on to a different subject.” 

Noah grabbed Bill’s hands in his and dropped to his knees. For a split second, it looked like he was about to give Bill a blowjob, and Theo’s hackles went up. “ _Please_ let me talk about it,” he begged. “I saw things I never want to see again. I gotta get it out or I’ll explode. Please, Bill?” 

Bill’s eyes narrowed, and after a few tense moments, he released Noah’s hands with an expression of acquiescence. “Talk all you want, then,” he said, but just then, the front door opened, bringing people and a gust of cold, windy air inside. 

“Uncle Bill! Uncle Theo!” Freddy barreled over to them and hugged Theo’s legs. The kid was getting damn strong – the force nearly made Theo fall over. “I did Play-Doh with Auntie Dee and Boaz! And Phil and Caleb!” 

“I know, buddy.” Theo petted Freddy’s hair, which, true to Dinah’s promise, was still wet from his bath. “Did you thank Aunt Dee for letting you stay at her house and giving you good food?” Freddy nodded into his corduroy-covered thighs. “Good job. Hey, Dee.” He waved at his sister, who was evidently not as enthusiastic as Freddy to see him, having come through the door at a speed less than Mach 2. “He enjoyed himself.” 

“Hi, Uncle Theo,” said Phil, shaking some of the rain off his jacket and hanging it up on the coat rack. He was echoed by his brother a moment later; Caleb’s curls were as damp as Freddy’s. Maybe the rain had started up again. 

Theo detached Freddy from his legs and gave Dinah a hug, then hugged each of his nephews. “You two look nice,” he said, and they did; both boys wore button-down shirts and dress pants in some shade of khaki. Then he turned back to Noah, who could probably have still been knocked over in a strong wind to judge by his expression, and said “Noah needs a listening ear right now. Bill and I are taking him to the dining room to talk. Freddy, do you want to go help Benny with the food?” 

“Yes!” said Freddy, with a vigorous nod. 

Trust a Baggins, even a little Baggins, to enjoy preparing food for other people as much as he enjoyed eating it himself. Theo suspected that the appreciation for food that Bill had patiently instilled in him was going to get even stronger the longer Freddy lived with them. “Okay. Go on, Benny’ll be happy to have you. Kitchen’s that way.” 

Freddy scurried off as fast as his little legs could take him. “Uncle Theo, can we watch TV here?” asked Phil. 

“Yeah, sure,” Noah answered for him. “I don’t think Danny will be down for a while.” He swallowed hard, as if to keep from gagging, and added, “He’s already up –“ 

“Okay!” Theo took Noah by the arm and brought him back into the dining room, Bill following. “Go ahead and get it out,” he muttered into Noah’s ear, “just keep it quiet, for fuck’s sake. Your trauma shouldn’t be the kids’ trauma.” 

Noah’s lower lip wobbled, and he grabbed Theo in a hug, then rested his head on Theo’s shoulder. Theo could smell hair gel, and the sharp spikes of Noah’s Mohawk poked him in the chin. “It was horrible,” he whispered. “Danny’s got, like, _no_ body hair. He was jerking his cock and it came out from between his fat folds like a…a worm.” 

“Now that’s just rude,” Benny said, poking his head into the dining room. “When I’m showin’ someone what I’ve got, I make sure to lift mine up.” 

Theo raised first one eyebrow, then the other at him. Benny’s shit-eating grin didn’t diminish. “I thought you and Chava were waiting,” he said. 

Benny blushed. “She started rebellin’ against that ‘round the time her parents kicked her out,” he said. “They never liked her physics degree. She wanted us to see each other’s, you know. I haven’t got to say it.” 

Chava’s parents had kicked her out? What a douchebag thing to do. The only reason Theo could think of for him not hearing about it was that it must have happened during the fetching-Freddy frenzy over the summer. “No, please don’t say it,” he replied, and patted Noah’s back. “Noah, you can stop shaking now. Everyone’s done talking about everyone else’s junk.” 

“He shaves his balls,” Noah said into Theo’s sweater. 

Now _that_ was interesting. Theo hadn’t seen a set of shaved ones since his time as the Slut of Boston. “Go on,” he said, partly out of curiosity and partly because…well, it might be kind of funny to see Noah actually explode. 

“Oi!” Bill hissed. “Not funny!” 

“Maybe I actually want to hear about Danny’s shaved balls,” said Theo. He did have a thing for chubby guys – hell, he’d just fucked one. And was married to him, of course; he couldn’t forget that. “Bill, if you ever wanted to shave your –“ 

“ _No_.” 

Theo nodded. “Okay, then.” He patted Noah’s back a few more times, then gently pushed him away as he heard the front door open again. “People are coming in, Noah. Think you can get over seeing your brother naked now? All _right_ , good man.” Noah pulled away from him, rubbing his eyeliner all over his face, and Theo decided it was as good a time as any to head out and say hi to people. 

There were, as it turned out, so many people that the whole lot of them practically fell forward onto Danny’s frou-frou welcome mat. “Hi, Theo!” said Galil, grinning goofily as his father fussed with Geula’s coat. He had his hair combed back and looked a little like a gigolo, but he’d clearly put a lot of time into it and Theo wasn’t going to say a damn thing. “’Theo’ is okay, right? Not ‘Dr. Derensky’?” 

“Of course it’s okay,” Theo assured him. He remembered being that age, vacillating awkwardly between using titles and using first names because of the respect he’d had drilled into him. It showed that Gad and Sima were good parents, at least. “You ready to party, kid?” 

“We’re all ready to party,” Gad interjected, Geula perched on his hip. She had on a blue velvet dress and black patent-leather shoes, and she looked very unhappy with the proceedings. It was probably the fake-fur edging on the dress. Either that or having to wear her hair in pigtails (Theo always saw her with it loose). 

“I bet you are!” Theo said, squeezed Gad’s offered hand – thank God for demonstrative Jewish men, or else he suspected he would have died of touch starvation by now – and shook Geula’s foot. “Hi, Geula. Not having as much fun as your dad, are you?” 

Geula stared at him for a moment, but then nodded, as if to say she would indeed dignify him with a response. “Hi, Doodoo,” she said, and smiled. She had nicer teeth than he did, Theo noted with some envy. “Geula gots presents.” 

“Bram, step lively,” Boaz said behind the Rabins, and Theo moved to the living room. 

Gad followed him, still clutching Geula, cheeks and neck splotched red. “I swear, we tell her Hanukkah’s about more than presents,” he muttered. “I don’t know where she got that. She’s just excited for the presents and the food.” He shook his head sadly. “Theo, where’d we go wrong?” 

“Don’t worry about it so much, Gad, she’s just a kid.” Theo reached out and twiddled one of Geula’s pigtails, to which she responded by kicking him lightly in the arm. “Ow, hey, that hurt.” 

Gad gave another weary sigh and set Geula down on the floor, where she immediately began to toddle off towards the kitchen. She walked with her legs splayed and her toes pointed in, like she still didn’t quite know what those ‘muscle’ things were for, and Theo felt a pang at how adorable she was. What would a biological kid of his be like? “She’s in a mood tonight,” Gad said. 

“Like I said, she’s just a kid. Come on, Gad, let’s go find some food.” Theo linked his arm in Gad’s and started after Geula. “What’s with you, anyway? You weren’t this neurotic when Galil was in the terrible twos. Worried about making the same mistakes, are we?” 

“So funny I forgot to laugh,” said Gad sourly. “Talk to me when you have your own two-year-old, Theo.” 

Theo clutched his fist to his heart. “Oh, cruel words.” 

Gad rolled his eyes with a good-natured huff. “Sorry, not sorry,” he said, something he had to have picked up from Galil, since Theo had never heard that phrase come out of the mouth of anyone in their generation who wasn’t trying to be Internet-hip. “You want the truth? Sima and I are worried about the Jewish-American Princess stereotype. Is that stupid?” 

Maybe, but who was he to judge? Gad was right. He was in possession of neither a toddler nor a daughter, and this was in no way his turf. “I don’t think it’s stupid to want to keep her from getting hurt,” Theo said, going for the neutral answer. Gad nodded, which probably meant he’d succeeded. “Just means you’re doing a good job.” 

“Okay!” cried Danny from the front hall, sounding a little out of breath. “Sorry I’m late, everyone, I had a work call and I couldn’t get out. I’ll go start serving the hors d’oeuvres now. Oreet, sweetie? Come down. People are here.” 

“Yeah,” said Theo under his breath, “if he considers Brian Feldman a work call, I’m scared for their relationship.” Gad sniggered, and Theo elbowed him just as Danny appeared in the kitchen with his entire face pink and his hair disheveled, the rest of the partygoers behind him. “Hi there, Danny. Too bad about the delay.” 

“Yes, too bad. Thank you, Theo.” Danny smoothed his hair with his palms. “It’s food time. Everyone grab a plate and sit wherever you want at the tables. I have some things I think everyone will like.” 

With that, the mass exodus to partake in the questionable feast began. Theo got in line behind Freddy and took plates for both of them. “What do you want, Freddo?” he asked. “There’s some chicken and green beans and salad, and Benny made latkes.” He’d filled Freddy in very thoroughly on what latkes were, and why one should stuff one’s face with them, the day before. “And…” He paused over a platter of things that looked like a cross between hockey pucks and Shredded Wheat. “Danny, what are these?” 

“I baked latkes,” said Danny, swooping in to straighten a serving spoon. “I also have applesauce and sour cream. It’s low-fat. Very good for your heart. Try these, Theo, you’ll love them.” 

Theo doubted that, but Freddy made grabby hands at the platter, so he put one on Freddy’s plate and one on his. Bill would probably eat whatever he didn’t want, anyway. Then he loaded up both plates with plenty of food, since Freddy was a good eater and Theo thought the green beans looked bland enough that he wouldn’t make much of a fuss about them. 

There were some _sufganiyot_ , brownies, and gelt at the end of the table, placed as far away from the rest of the food as possible, as if Danny had only begrudgingly allowed such tawdry, artery-clogging Hanukkah fare in his house. They probably had Benny to thank for the desserts, except for maybe the gelt – it was traditional, after all. “Jelly doughnuts, buddy,” said Theo, and nabbed a few before everyone else could get to them. On second thought, he got some extra napkins from the pile, too. Five-year-olds and messy food didn’t mix. 

With full plates, he and Freddy sat down at one of the tables in the dining room with Bill, Noah, Dwight, and Sima, who looked to be saving three spots for the rest of her family. “Hello there,” said Bill. “Freddy, you’re going to love this chicken. It’s delicious.” He forked a piece and shoved it in his mouth, completely undignified. His plate was easily the fullest of anyone’s at the table. “See now, Theo,” he added with his mouth full, “Danny can cook.” 

“It’s pretty hard to screw up chicken,” Theo countered, “except for food poisoning.” He’d heard Bill say the words _Campylobacter jejuni_ enough times that he could swear he’d had nightmares about Guillain–Barré syndrome. Some days, all the bacteria talk made him want to avoid touching anything that hadn’t been individually flash frozen first. 

“Except for that, of course,” said Bill. “You’ll love the green beans, too.” 

Theo took Freddy’s utensils and quickly cut up his food for him, then saw to his own. Bill was right; the chicken wasn’t half bad. In fact, it tasted familiar. “This is like what my mom used to make,” he said. “All that’s missing is the broth.” 

“That’s a good compliment,” said Dwight, biting into one of the real latkes. “Did Danny make these, too? They’re great.” 

Freddy shook his head and pointed to the Shredded Wheatkes on his plate. “Danny made those. He baked them.” 

“Then I’d avoid them,” Noah said. “Those look like flying saucers. Tell you what, Freddy, if you can eat a whole one without puking, I’ll give you five dollars.” 

“God, Noah, don’t make bets on a kid!” Theo snapped, but Freddy nodded and rose to the bait, taking an enormous bite out of the so-called latke and chewing contemplatively. 

For a second, it looked like he really was going to throw up. Then he slowly swallowed and stuck out his tongue. “That latke is icky,” he declared. “I don’t want it!” 

Of course, it was everyone’s bad luck that Danny glanced into the dining room just in time to hear that. Theo winced and prepared for an explosion as Danny’s mouth tightened up, but all he did was disappear back into the kitchen. “Oh, shit,” said Noah, who had his eyes glued to his plate. Theo suspected he was still too weirded out by what he’d seen to meet Danny’s eye. 

“Swear words!” Galil sat down next to Noah, and Gad took the chair next to him, putting Geula in his lap. “ _Ima_ , you didn’t need to save three seats. _Aba_ ’s holding Geula.” 

“Well,” said Sima, “now I know. Galli, make sure to eat some vegetables. These ones don’t taste bad at all. The chicken is good, too.” 

“Uncle Bill said it’s good,” said Freddy, nodding. “But the latkes are bad.” 

Theo put his hand on Freddy’s shoulder and turned him to look at him. It was bad enough that Freddy had said that within Danny’s earshot – and did that make him a hypocrite? Guiltily, he resolved to stop talking smack about Danny’s food…while they were here. “Freddy,” he said quietly, “you hurt Danny’s feelings when you said that about his latkes. You say you’re sorry when you see him again.” 

Freddy put his index finger in his mouth and briefly chewed on it. “Okay, Uncle.” 

“Hey, you have dinner to chew on,” Theo said, smiling and pulling Freddy’s hand out of his mouth. Now that that was resolved, he could end the disciplinary process and go back to eating. “Don’t chew on your finger. Have one of Benny’s latkes if you want.” He took one of them off his plate and put it on Freddy’s. “Here you go.” Freddy eyed it suspiciously. “Those are fried, not baked.” 

“Oh.” Freddy stabbed the latke with his fork and brought a piece to his mouth. Immediately, he lit up. “That’s yummy!” 

“And everything else is yummy, too,” said Dwight. He’d already torn through all of his chicken, and now he reached over and took a piece off Noah’s plate. 

Noah pointed his fork at him. “ _Hey!_ ”

“Just go get more if you want. You eat like a bird anyway.” Dwight deposited the chicken on his plate and leaned over the table, winking at Freddy. “Privileges of being married. I get to do that to him and he gets to do it to me.” 

Theo forked some green beans into his mouth. “Speaking of married, how’s life with the kids?” he asked, directing this one towards Sima. “Got some of it from Gad. Are you doing okay?” 

“I’m a little tired,” she admitted. “Working from home helps, but now that Geula’s walking, I have to focus on keeping her out of my jewel pieces. She could choke.” 

“I’m not looking forward to that,” said Chava, leaning over from partway down the table. It was an awkward position, but Theo appreciated her trying to be audible. “I want kids, but the whole childcare thing’s gonna be hard without my parents helping.” 

Danny sat down at the other table, and like Noah, Theo very studiously avoided looking at him. “I wouldn’t mind babysitting,” he said. “I’m usually home in the evenings and Bill usually has day shifts. It’d be easy to keep kids away from the swords.” He hoped that wasn’t out of line. Maybe Chava still didn’t think she knew him well enough to consider that kind of offer not-creepy. 

“Really?” Chava tapped her lower lip. “I guess I’m putting the cart before the horse, anyway,” she said, and broke off to laugh. “Just one thing I’d kind of worry about, though. This might sound mean, but…” 

There were a lot of things about him that would invite meanness. Theo wasn’t surprised. “I know, I know, I’m in a weird line of work,” he said. “Are you worried I’d tell the kids about scary historical stuff? Or is it the gay thing? If they see your parents and start talking, I can see how –“ 

“No, it’s not any of that,” Chava said. She tapped her eyebrow. “It’s the scars. They’re a little scary.” 

“The scars?” Theo repeated. God, it had been so long since he’d thought about them; the sight of the faint pink lines had become normal to him when he looked in the mirror, and Dane hadn’t said anything, but maybe he was just being nice. Freddy’s friends didn’t know him, though, and they hadn’t, either; then again, it could have been that he was too tall for them to see the scars clearly. “Oh, okay. I’m surprised. Didn’t think they scared you.” 

Chava rubbed her nose and looked away, clearing her throat. “Sorry. Like I said, it probably sounded mean. I was just worried about crying kids and stuff like that.” 

“For what it’s worth,” Sima put in, “Theo’s scars haven’t scared Geula, and she was around when they were fresh, too.” 

“Doodoo?” said Geula. “Doodoo gots a cars?”

Gad chortled and kissed the top of her head. “Not cars, _matoki_ , scars,” he said. “The stuff on his face from when he got hurt. You probably don’t remember." 

“Nope,” Geula agreed. She reached for a chunk of chicken and a piece of latke out of her special pile on Gad’s plate and shoved them into her mouth. “ _Ima_ do cookies, _Aba_.” 

“That’s the random phase,” said Galil as the adults chuckled around him, Theo included. “ _Ima_ says she’ll grow out of it. She used to just say ‘no’ all the time.” 

“And she’ll do it again when she hits the really bad part of the terrible twos,” Chava said. “You know what’s weird? I think I’m looking forward to _having_ kids almost as much as raising them. Being pregnant.” 

Benny leaned on his elbow next to her. “I don’t think we’d have room for that many kids,” he said, “with the shitey property taxes around here. Think surrogacy might be a good idea?” 

“What, for me?” Chava asked. 

“Aye, for you.” 

“Absolutely,” she said. “Rent-a-Uterus, sure, I could go for that. Just need someone to take the kid and pay for prenatal care.” 

“Huh,” said Theo, and his eyes wandered to Geula again, wriggling in Gad’s lap like she had ants in her pants – it was an expression Mama had picked up at some point, and she inserted it into the conversation whenever he or Forrest was visibly bored (usually Forrest). Would Chava ever agree to be his surrogate? Would _Bill_ even want a kid? The image of a child with his black hair and Chava’s easy smile was…strangely charming. What if…

Bill tapped his arm. “Theo,” he said, “you’ve got that pensive look. What’s going on in your head?” 

He had to stop zoning out during meals, dammit. Bill had already had to put him on double secret probation twice this year for accidentally putting his elbow in various condiments while they ate. “Probably time for dessert that’s what,” Theo said. He picked up a _sufganiya_ , tore it in half, and offered one of the halves to Freddy. “I think that’s cherry jelly, Freddo. Have a bite. I know you’ll like it.” 

“I like lots of things,” said Freddy. He took a big bite out of the doughnut, and immediately, his face took on a look of rapture. “I really like it! Eat it, Uncle Theo!” 

“That’s what she said,” Noah muttered. 

“And that’s enough out of you,” said Bill. “Think I’ll try one of those, and one of the brownies. And how the dickens do you get these bloody gold pieces open?” 

Theo took the piece of gelt from Bill’s fumbling fingers and peeled off the foil for him. “Like that,” he said, “and it’s gelt, not gold. We’re going for the Yiddish theme here.” 

“Oh.” Bill took the chocolate, popped it in his mouth, and promptly started demolishing the pile on his plate with (quite frankly creepy) gusto. 

Partway through Theo’s second _sufganiya_ , Caleb came up behind him and rested his head on his shoulder. “Hi, Uncle Theo. I had a long week.” 

“Hi, Caleb. Sounds like someone could use a pick-me-up, then.” Tomorrow was Monday, so Caleb would kind of be going back to more of the same if school was the thing that was grinding him down, but it was good to be encouraging. “What’s eating you?” 

“ _Sackinot_ ,” Freddy suggested, waving his jelly-covered fingers in the air. With a sigh, Bill took his hand, dipped his napkin in his water glass, and began to clean off the jelly. 

“No, they’re eating the doughnuts,” said Theo, “not the other way around. Spill, Caley.” It would be a little difficult to talk with Caleb hunched over him, wouldn’t it? “Sima,” he said, turning around in his seat, “you have an extra chair there. Would you mind moving over so Caleb can sit down?” 

Sima nodded. “Oh, sure,” she said, and got up at once. 

Caleb moved into her seat, put his elbows on the table, and rested his chin in his hands. “Bar mitzvah lessons are killing me,” he complained. “Phil and I gotta get everything down in _nine months_. It’s like we’re pregnant or something!” 

Gad laughed, Bill cracked a smile, and even Freddy brightened, though the way he looked at Bill after made Theo think he didn’t understand what was so funny. “So you two finally started preparing,” Theo said. “Good for you. I remember my bar mitzvah.” Five feet eight inches of awkward teenager whose nose had grown before the rest of his face, Papa getting on him about proper pronunciation, and a party with 'Karma Chameleon’ on the radio (and Dee obstinately pronouncing it ‘Comma Chameleon’) – those were his bar mitzvah memories. Not-so-good times, those. “Your mom’s doing it a little late, isn’t she?” Phil would be fourteen going on fifteen if they had it next September, and thirteen was the minimum age for boys. 

“Yeah, it’s so we can do it at the same time,” Caleb said. “One of the guys in Hebrew school did that with his little sister and he had to wait ‘til he was sixteen. Phil’s okay with waiting. Mom says two bar mitzvahs in a year is gonna send her to the nuthouse.” 

“Okay, that makes sense,” Theo replied. Dinah did not make those kinds of threats lightly, not after what had killed Papa. “I think she’d be pretty bad-tempered for a while if she had to do two.” 

He heard footsteps behind him, and then felt a tap on his shoulder. “Theo,” Danny said, “I think it’s time for you to go change. People are mostly done with dessert.” 

“Thanks, Danny.” Theo looked across the table and caught Freddy’s eye. “Freddy, Danny’s here. Do you have anything to say?” 

Freddy’s brow furrowed for a moment before he remembered. “Oh! I’m sorry I said you made icky latkes. It was mean, Mr. Danny.” To his credit, he did look sincere. Theo didn’t think he was old enough yet to realize the merits of faking it, or to know how to do so. 

Danny sighed, but from years of Danny-watching, Theo knew it wasn’t an angry sigh. “All right,” he said, “I accept your apology. I hope you’ve enjoyed the rest of your dinner.” 

“Yes. I ate _lots_ of chicken.” Freddy closed his eyes and rubbed his belly. “Yum yum.” 

“Well, I made that, too,” Danny said, definitely a bit more perked-up now. “Theo, you can use the upstairs bathroom if you want. Oreet is in the one down here.” 

“Okay, thanks,” Theo said, and briefly wondered if Oreet was using the bathroom as an excuse to sit on the toilet and read without being bothered. It was something he would have done at her age. “Freddo, be good for Uncle Bill. I’ll be right back.” 

He got up and found Danny’s workroom (organized to robotic levels of neatness, of course, despite the dozens and dozens of law books that filled up not only the bookshelves, but part of the desk as well), then retrieved his stupid Jewish Santa suit from under the desk and beat it up the stairs so no one would see him. Luckily for him, the suit was easy to pull on and the pants were elastic-waisted, all the better to pull them the hell off when he was done with this stunt. “Hope they don’t insist on this next year,” he said to his reflection in the bathroom mirror, adjusted his hair under the hat, and groomed his beard with his thumb and finger so it wouldn’t poof out. No need to look even more like Santa than he had to. 

The ambient noise had moved to the living room by the time he got back downstairs, but Danny was waiting in the entryway. “Good,” he said in a low voice, “you’re here. Presents are assembled, kids are on the couch. Are you ready?” God, _no_ , but Theo nodded. “Okay, wait here. I’ll announce your arrival.” 

Theo leaned against the wall as Danny went back into the living room. “If I could have everyone’s attention,” Danny began, and the noise stopped. “I’m pleased to announce the arrival of someone very special at this Hanukkah party. All the way from the frozen wilds of…of wherever he makes toys for Jewish kids, here comes Jewish Santa!” 

Theo squared his shoulders, shook his head to make the pom-pom on his hat shake, and walked into the living room. “Hey there! I’m Jewish Santa, and I’ve come to give everyone presents.” 

As he’d expected, everyone looked like they were on the verge of hysterical laughter, but he kept his eyes focused on Freddy, whose face lit up like the Christmas tree that Bill had yet to decorate. “Jewish Santa!” he cried. “How did you find me?” 

Theo knelt in front of him and took both of his hands. “Jewish Santa finds you wherever you are, because Jewish Santa loves you,” he said. Then he took off his hat and saw Freddy’s mouth drop open. “In fact, your Uncle Theo loves you, too.” 

“Oh,” Freddy gasped. “ _You’re_ Jewish Santa?” 

Theo stood back up and cleared his throat. “Just one night a year, kiddo.” Presents lay against the far wall in neatly-stacked piles, many more than the ones he and Bill had brought. He pointed at them. “I think it’s time to exchange gifts,” he said. He and Danny had agreed on the orderly distribution to avoid a stampede, but you could never be sure of anything with this many kids. “I’ll hand out presents one by one.” 

“Hanukkah Harry,” Omer muttered in his usual non-muttering volume, “the Hanukkah fairy.” 

Theo opened his mouth for a retort, but abruptly decided that comment didn’t deserve one, whether Omer was making a hairy joke or a fairy joke. “Okay,” he said instead, and took the first present off one of the piles. “This one is for Geula.” 

The kids behaved themselves until all the presents were distributed, four to each kid (one from Theo and Bill, one from Gad and Sima, one a combined effort from Dwight, Noah, and Danny, and one from Dinah and the Budins), but began ripping off the wrapping paper with characteristic relish as soon as they were seated with their loot. “I’ve got lots of presents,” said Freddy as he tore into the tissue paper in a gift bag. “Ooh!” He pulled out a fleece teddy bear with a blue ribbon around its neck, just the right size for him to tuck under his arm. Theo very nearly melted at how adorable the sight was. “It’s a bear-bear!” 

“That one’s from us,” said Dwight. “I made the bear. Do you like it?” 

Freddy hugged the bear against his chest and then ran over to Dwight, throwing his arms around him with the bear squished in between. “I love my bear!” 

“You know how to sew?” Theo asked. Seriously, this was a surprise. He knew Dwight knitted, but he’d never gotten any hint out of the guy that he was interested in making stuffed toys. 

“Nope,” Dwight answered, “but I learned.” Next to him, Oreet had already torn open her new set of colored pencils and begun to draw in the sketchbook from Dinah and Boaz. 

“And I helped, so everyone could get one,” Noah said. “He’s been working on these for two months, Theo. You should’ve seen his fingers – like Swiss cheese!” He wiggled his own fingers at Theo. “We ran out of Band-Aids so many times.” 

Theo nodded; he believed it. Next to Freddy, Caleb opened the box that Bill had filled with his gift. “Whoa!” he said, and broke into an enormous grin. “Mom! Check out all the yarn!” He grabbed two skeins of thin purple yarn and held one in each fist. “I can make so much with this.” 

“Caleb, how many projects do you have going right now?” Dinah crossed her arms. “You sure it’s the best idea to add another one?” 

“Oh, knitters always have a hundred projects going at one time,” Bill said. “I’m glad you like that yarn, Caleb. You wouldn’t believe how long I dawdled in the store buying it. That trip was almost as much for my pleasure as your gift.” 

Caleb turned his smile on Bill. “It’s awesome. Thanks, Uncle Bill – oops…” He shook his head. “I mean, screw it. You’re married to Uncle Theo. I should call you Uncle Bill, right?” 

“I…” It looked like someone had just hit Bill in the solar plexus as he stood there open-mouthed, making wheezing noises. “You…you want to do that?” 

“Well, why not?” Benny asked. “You two’ve been together long enough. It’s past time Bill became an official part of the Derensky family, I say!” 

“So it’s Uncle Bill now,” said Dinah. “Are we all in agreement?” She looked around the room and got a mumble of assent from the distracted kids, but a more enthusiastic one from the assembled adults. “Uncle Theo and Uncle Bill, and it should’ve been done a while ago because we’re all idiots. Now let’s get back to doing Hanukkah.” 

Geula finished off the proceedings with a squeal as she banged together the wooden dolls that Bill and Theo had gotten her, one of which made Galil grunt when it hit him in the ribs. Meanwhile, Phil pulled a pen case out of a box and opened it up. “Fountain pen!” he said. “Cool. Thanks, Uncles!” 

“Open the envelope, too,” said Theo. “You’ll like what’s in there.” 

Phil did as he was told. The card that he pulled out was illuminated like an old medieval manuscript, and he looked duly impressed with the metallic accents. Then he took out the gift certificate inside and went completely starry-eyed. “Glassblowing lessons? Oh my God, _cool!_ ” He charged over and hugged Theo, nearly knocking the breath out of him, too. Wow. 

“We figured you deserve something more adult, since high school’s coming up,” Theo said once he was able to breathe again. “That’s what the pen’s for. The glassblowing lessons are just for fun.” 

“ _Sweet_.” Phil gave Theo one last squeeze and ran over to Caleb, card clutched in his hand. “Caleb, look what I got!” 

“You know,” Danny said, settling himself on the floor next to Theo, “there’s a present for you, too, Bill.” 

Bill blinked at him. “There is?” 

“Yes.” Danny raised his eyebrow at Theo. “Why don’t you two go upstairs to Noah’s old room? It’s the one with all the coats on the bed. I put the present in the closet.” 

Theo grinned. This particular present had sat in Noah’s old room for the better part of a week, and unlike the Jewish Santa idea, Danny had accepted it with a wink and a statement of how this had better be how he treated Bill all the time. “Come on, Bill, it’s from Danny and me both,” he said, taking Bill by the arm. “Let’s go upstairs.” 

“Well, all right,” Bill said, and followed him upstairs to Noah’s old room. Danny had stripped it pretty clean when Noah moved out; now it just looked like a normal guest room, with Noah’s old bed made up with a generic white comforter and all of Noah’s posters cleared off the walls. “So what’s the gift?” 

“I lied,” Theo said, and opened the closet door. The present sat on the floor, wrapped in Hanukkah paper (Danny’s doing – Theo couldn’t wrap presents without giving himself a paper cut) and topped with a silver bow. “It’s from me, but Danny did the wrapping and stashed it for me. So it’s kind of from both of us, but not really.” He picked up the box and brought it over to Bill, who was sitting on the bed. “Open it.” 

Bill put the box on his lap, undid the wrapping, and peeled off the tape. “Oh.” He stared down into the depths of the tissue paper inside. “Oh my God, Theo, is this…?” He looked up at Theo as the question trailed off. 

“Yup,” said Theo, preening inside. He had a right to, didn’t he? He’d made a Ravelry account for the express purpose of getting people to sell him their hard-earned yarn stashes. “Baruffa Bollicina.” He pronounced the name carefully, but Bill didn’t look at him like he’d gotten it wrong. “That’s enough to make you a sweater if you want, or whatever. Maybe a blanket. I don’t know how much makes what.” 

Bill lifted out a ball of yarn and rubbed it against his face. “That’s so _soft_ ,” he said in a voice full of wonder. “Why did you buy this, Theo? You know I have too much yarn already.” 

“What, are you criticizing your present? I can give ‘em back.” There went his time on Ravelry, apparently. And he’d found a few cool patterns, too, if only Bill would teach him to knit. Maybe he’d have to refuse to learn, just on principle. 

“No, no!” Bill grabbed Theo’s face and kissed him heartily. “This is the best gift in the world. You just shouldn’t encourage my pack-rat habits.” He kissed Theo again and put his arms around Theo’s neck. “I love you. Do you want to have sex on Noah’s bed?” 

“ _What?_ ” Theo said. Sure, the bed would be nice and squishy with all the coats on it, and they could always lock the door, and – no. “I think I’ll pass this time. Not that I’m not tempted. It’s just…this isn’t a very sexy place to fuck.” 

Bill sighed and put his head in Theo’s lap. “I still owe you a post-Jewish-Santa blowjob,” he said. “I suppose we’ll just have to do it when we get home.” 

“We’re still doing that?” Theo ran his hand through Bill’s hair and set to stroking the curls. “I thought the pre-party sex might’ve fulfilled your obligation there.” 

“No, no, I promised you I’d blow you if you made Freddy happy, and you did.” Bill let out a contented sigh. “That is, if I don’t nod off right here. Your lap is comfortable.” 

That wasn’t a bad idea. Theo kicked off his shoes and lay on his back, Bill following suit and cuddling up against him. “I guess we can stay here a few minutes,” he said, “as long as we don’t do anything that’d make us embarrassed if Danny walked in.” 

“No,” Bill said, and yawned. “Too tired.” 

“We just had a nap like six hours ago.” 

“Still.” 

Theo stroked Bill’s hair again and closed his eyes. The next thing he knew, Danny’s voice was invading his head, along with a knock on the door. “Theo? Bill?” Danny banged on the door again. “I hope there’s no funny business going on in there.” 

“You wish, Reisberg,” said Theo, and sat up groggily. When did he get so old that a nap on a pile of coats was a better way to spend part of an evening than wild monkey sex? “Sorry, do people need coats?” 

“They will soon,” Danny said. “The party’s winding down. You want to come get Freddy, I think – he fell asleep on the couch.” 

“We’ll be right down,” Theo said. He poked Bill in the side until Bill’s eyes opened. “Hey, we gotta get downstairs. Freddy’s asleep.” 

Bill sat up, shaking his head. “Of course he is,” he said, then rubbed his eyes. “All right, then, downstairs it is. Have you got any idea how long we slept?” 

Theo glanced at the clock radio on the bedtable. “Fifteen minutes. Danny’s really impatient, I guess.” 

Bill shrugged, but said nothing, just picked up his yarn box and opened the door. Danny was already gone, and true to what he had said, Freddy was fast asleep on the couch when Bill and Theo got down there, although he opened his eyes when Theo touched his forehead. “Got a book, Uncle Theo,” he said. “’s’about latkes.” 

“Yeah?” Theo located the book and picked it up. “’The Latke who Couldn’t Stop Screaming,’ he read aloud, ‘by Lemony Snicket.’ Oh, boy. Who gave that to you?” 

“Boaz.” Freddy uncurled himself and rested his chin on the couch arm. “He said I’ll laugh really hard. Can I sit on Father Hanukkah’s lap and you read it to me, Uncle Theo?” 

“Jewish Santa,” Bill corrected, and picked Freddy up. “That’s how they say it in America. Are you ready to go home, love? You look all done in.” 

Freddy wrapped his legs around Bill’s waist and laid his head on his shoulder. He’d grown considerably, Theo was surprised to see, in the two and a half months they’d had him. He was still skinny, but he’d filled out some and even with his longer legs, he didn’t look nearly as much like a spider as he had. “Yes,” he said, the word muffled into Bill’s sweater. “Sleepy.” 

Theo gathered up Freddy’s presents in the gift bags that had held two of them. “Okay,” he said. “Danny, thanks again for hosting. Do you want help cleaning up? I can come around tomorrow.” 

“It’s no problem,” Danny said. “I’ll have this done in half an hour at most, but thanks for the offer.” He stretched his arms behind him and headed for the entryway. “I’ll get your coats.” 

“And here’s his stuff from the sleepover,” Dinah said, getting up from the armchair and handing Theo a plastic grocery bag filled with clothes. She kissed his cheek and gave him a brief hug, then said “Fun party, Theo. We should do this again next year.” 

“In the suit?” Theo said. “Fat chance.” 

Danny came back about ten seconds later, and Bill had to put Freddy down to get their coats on. Freddy swayed on his feet, but Theo put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from falling. “Steady there, Freddo,” he said. “We’ll be home soon and you can go to bed. I bet Carpet will give you kisses.” 

“Kisses,” Freddy said, “yay.” 

Theo took him by the hand. “Come on, let’s get out to the car, bud. We shouldn’t stand here with the door open when it’s cold outside.” 

The drive home was as quiet as the drive to Danny’s had been, albeit for a different reason – not waking up a sleeping kindergartener was the most important reason to keep one’s mouth shut, in Theo’s opinion. But Freddy wasn’t quite asleep, as evidenced by his slurred announcement of “We’re home, Uncles” when Theo turned off the car. 

“Sure are,” Theo said. He really was turning into a Derensky, stating the obvious and all. 

“Mm,” Bill agreed, went to the back seat, and unbuckled Freddy. “I’ll put him to bed, Theo. Why don’t you go ahead and go to our room? Get a bit of rest yourself.” 

Theo knew exactly what Bill meant by ‘rest.’ At the thought of fun times, his cock started stirring in his stupid fluffy pants again, and – “Oh, dammit, I left my clothes at Danny’s!” 

Bill sighed. “Do we need to go back?” 

“No. I can go get them tomorrow.” He was starting to appreciate the lure of his warm bed, too. Freddy had the right idea. 

Rug bounced over to him and meowed as soon as he opened the front door. “Hey,” Theo said, “how long have you been waiting for us?” He knelt and scratched Rug behind the ears. “Good fat boy. That’s Daddy’s fat sack a’ crap. You pooped tonight yet? Smelly boy.” 

“Theo.” 

“Just giving my cat son some affection,” said Theo, and stood back up. “I’ll head to our room. Meet me there?” 

Bill gave him a look. “Of course.” 

Theo went up the stairs ahead of Bill and Freddy, closed the door to his room behind him, and stripped off the Jewish Santa suit with a happy groan. “Should’ve rented,” he said. Maybe then, there would be less of a risk of the Limeys insisting on this again next year. Or Phil and Caleb, who had looked entirely too gleeful when he came into the living room in costume. He yawned and lay down on the bed on his stomach, pressing his face against the comforter – the quilt was getting cleaned, courtesy of Martha, and comforters were so much more suited to this, anyway.  
Bill came in ten minutes later and immediately took off his sweater, then started on the T-shirt underneath. “Flat out as soon as I tucked him in,” he reported. “We’ll still have to be quiet. Don’t think there’s a great risk of him waking up, though. Do you still want…?” 

“Yeah, of course.” Theo scrambled up and propped himself against the pillows. 

Bill raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, no, this is no ordinary blowjob,” he said. Oh, he was being commanding again? Theo moaned through a bitten lower lip as he started perking up fully. “That’s right, get yourself ready. Lie down on your back and put a pillow under your arse, then close your eyes. I’ve got a surprise.” 

“God, I love Hanukkah,” Theo said, and obeyed. A moment later, he felt Bill lift his head and tie something around his eyes. “Blindfold? That’s kinky.” 

“I’m going for a bit of sensory deprivation here,” Bill said, and somehow, his primness made it hotter. “You’ve been so accommodating for everyone, Theo. I know you didn’t like wearing that outfit. Lie back and let me take control – I’ll make it good for you.” 

Theo whimpered deep in his throat, and again, louder, when Bill touched the tip of his tongue to the head of his cock. The helpless upward jut of his hips really did add to the loss of control effect. Bill was a fucking genius. “Fuck…” 

He had time to think _no condom?_ , but that was the last coherent thought that flitted through his mind as Bill set to sucking him, or maybe _teasing_ him was a better term. He licked and breathed on Theo’s cock from every angle, even detouring down to tease his balls, before he even sucked the head into his mouth. “Mmm,” he said, and let Theo’s cockhead slip out. “You taste better than usual.” 

Theo made a noise he couldn’t describe and threw his arm over his blindfolded eyes. “Fuck.” 

“Yes, you keep saying that,” said Bill, and then, thank _God_ , he sucked him down fully. 

He didn’t last. Bill’s possessive attitude was just too damn hot, and within – how long was it? Minutes? Seconds? – he cried out and came, desperate and needy, into Bill’s mouth. Bill sucked him through it, and fuck him if it didn’t last longer than any orgasm in recent memory. 

But soon he was finished, and lay half-senseless on the bed, breathing heavily. His forehead felt hot, and he touched it with two fingers to find that it was covered in sweat. “Blood’s going to my head,” he said faintly. 

“Sorry.” Bill kissed his forehead. “Let’s fix that.” He pulled the pillow out from under Theo’s ass and removed the blindfold, then kissed his mouth, only to pull away with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I’ve got come mouth.” 

Theo smiled and rolled over. “At least you didn’t say ‘semen,’” he said. “Go brush your teeth if you want.” 

“Later. I’m feeling cuddly.” So bossy. Theo wiggled up and lay down with his head on another pillow, rubbing his hot face against it, and Bill cuddled against him with an arm across his waist. “Where were we earlier?” he asked. “You know, before all the sex. You were telling me about the crazy Darrens theories.” 

“I thought we finished that,” Theo said. 

“Mmm, well.” Bill kissed his ear. “I want to hear more.” 

It was way too late to start racking his brain for the craziest stuff he’d read online, but for Bill, he’d try. There _was_ the one he’d read months ago, positing that he never showed his face because he was a self-conscious burn victim and had internalized ableism as a result. Kids needed better things to do with their time. “Okay. Listen to this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and encouragement are HUGELY appreciated. :) 
> 
> _Tallit_ and _tefillin_ are, respectively, a Jewish prayer shawl and a set of phylacteries, or the boxes containing bits of Torah that some observant Jewish people (mostly men) tie onto themselves to pray. 
> 
> Yes, Theo did forget to shave and yes, he did eat two meals in a row. I'm of the opinion that if Thorin hadn't been so wound up (and arrived on time), he would have eaten just as much as the other Dwarves. 
> 
> [Jewish Santa suits](https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1600&bih=765&q=jewish+santa+suit&oq=jewish+santa+suit&gs_l=img.3..0l10.372.1693.0.1822.17.7.0.0.0.0.307.307.3-1.1.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..16.1.306.8yB5kx2OvX8) exist. So does [The Latke who Couldn't Stop Screaming.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBm4IGxKQR8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBm4IGxKQR8) (The idea that I should include the book is from [lumateranlibrarian](lumateranlibrarian.tumblr.com).) All of the listed types of lube exist, too, down to the flavor - I checked. 
> 
> _Sufganiya_ is the singular form of _sufganiyot_ in Hebrew. And _sufganiyot_ are amazing.
> 
>  _Campylobacter jejuni_ is a major cause of food poisoning in the US, mostly spread through contaminated/undercooked chicken. In about one in several thousand cases, you can get an ascending paralysis (Guillain–Barré syndrome).
> 
> [Ravelry](www.ravelry.com) is a fiber-craft resource site. And before you ask: yes, I'm on there. :D 
> 
> As always, I'm godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr.


	22. A Well of Living Waters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil and Caleb's bar mitzvah should be going smoothly, but as usual, life has other ideas.

_Ima_ said the lights in the bathrooms here were terrible, and she was so right. Galil smoothed down his hair with his hands, squinted at himself, then did it again with his hands wet from the sink faucet. Nope, he didn’t look any better. Wild hair, a couple of shiny zits on his nose and forehead, and thin, patchy hair on his upper lip – he was so ugly, and he wasn’t even thirteen yet. He just knew it would get worse when he got older. _Ima_ always looked nice and _Aba_ was handsome even if he was hairy, so what had happened to Galil while he was cooking? 

He couldn’t hear the bar mitzvah from here. That was something, at least. Phil was okay, but Caleb couldn’t sing even when his voice wasn’t cracking. Galil had actually felt relieved when the need to go to the bathroom got so bad that _Ima_ let him get up in the middle of the service. He could probably spend ten, maybe fifteen minutes in here before people started thinking he was just skipping out on Phil and Caleb’s big day. 

What they were chanting was pretty messed up, anyway. They’d gotten _Ki Teitzei_ for their _parasha_ and the translation was right in the book, so of course Galil read it when the ceremony started getting boring. The section was all about what to do if you found out a girl wasn’t a virgin, like throw stones at her, and how if your penis or balls got hurt, you couldn’t become a member of the congregation. _Aba’s_ eyes got all wide when he started reading over Galil’s shoulder, which Galil thought was probably why he wouldn’t answer when Galil asked him how the heck you could ‘provide proof’ that a girl wasn’t a virgin. For some reason, he thought it was probably more embarrassing than just asking her. 

Ugh, it was no use. His hair was never going to look good. He straightened the cuffs of his suit jacket and turned away from the mirror. It probably hadn’t even been ten minutes – and was someone _puking_? 

He spun around and opened both stall doors, even though he knew it was stupid; he’d been alone in here ever since he came in. Nope, but the throwing-up sounds went on. Was someone sick in the women’s room? Yeah, that was probably it. “Ew,” he said. She would probably stop soon and then his stomach would stop knotting up. 

But the sounds went on, and the knot in his stomach got even tighter. What if she got internal bleeding from all the throwing up? She probably wouldn’t be able to call the doctor if she was that sick, and that meant he _had_ to help, even if it meant going into the women’s bathroom. 

Galil checked out the door first to see if the social hall was clear, because _no way_ was he going into the women’s room if people would laugh at him or think he was weird. It was empty out there, so he let himself out and then went into the other bathroom as quietly as he could. “Hello?” he said, unsure. Man, it really stank in here. 

“Oh, _God_ , Galil,” someone said weakly from one of the stalls, “it’s you. What are you doing in here?” 

“Dinah?” Yep, those were her shoes. “Are you okay?” Didn’t she do this after Mr. Adler-Derensky died, too? _Ima_ said she spent a million years throwing up in the hospital bathroom. Maybe she had a stress-induced eating disorder or something. Mrs. Edwards didn’t talk about that kind in health class, just anorexia and bulimia. It was probably in one of those categories. 

He started towards the stall, but then another reason popped into his head and he backed up _fast_. “Um. Are you contagious? Sorry if I’m rude.” Geula had given him the stomach flu from day care two months ago and he still wanted to gag whenever he thought about it. 

“No, no.” She made a sound like a laugh and a sigh at the same time. “I’m just a little sick to my stomach. Think I’m done for now.” 

Okay, so she wouldn’t infect him and – he looked under the edge of the stall – she didn’t have her pants down. That meant he could help her feel better. Galil pushed on the door, which opened easily, and squatted down to pat her hunched back. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “Right? You’ll be okay?” She still _could_ get internal bleeding if she started throwing up again later. 

Dinah flushed the toilet and sat back against the side of the stall with her knees drawn up and her arms around her legs. “Yeah, I guess,” she said, and pulled her hair away from her face, which looked like waxy cheese. It wasn’t red, so she didn’t have a fever. He guessed that was good; it meant she didn’t have a disease, even a non-contagious one. “Galil…” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up at him. “I really, really hate asking you this, but can you do me a favor?” 

“Sure,” he said. “Wait, it’s not illegal, right?” 

“No, honey.” She pulled on some of her hair. “There’s a drugstore across the street. I need you to go and get me some pregnancy tests. They don’t have to be expensive, but –“ 

“You’re _pregnant?_ ” 

“I don’t know! That’s the point!” She lurched to her feet, then groaned like a zombie and sat back down hard. “I think I am. I definitely missed a period, but I need to be sure. Otherwise I’ll go to the doctor and just look stupid if there’s nothing in there.” 

Galil really wished she hadn’t said that about periods. Blood icked him out, and that sucked, because Geula liked to lick her scabs and peel them off. “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t have money. And they’ll think I’m buying it for my girlfriend and she’s pregnant. I don’t think I can even do that yet.” Maybe he could, but anyway, he looked way older because of the stupid mustache. He was still shrimpy, but most people who met him thought he was about fourteen, and some old lady called him a hoodlum that one time. 

She looked up at him with huge, shiny eyes. He really hoped she wasn’t crying – he hated when people cried, especially when it was his fault. “Please, Galil,” she said. “Please. I can’t miss more of my sons’ only bar mitzvah because I still think I’m just sick.” 

Galil felt his lower lip start to shake and he pressed his hands against his eyes so _he_ wouldn’t start crying and screw everything up. “Are the tests really expensive? Maybe I have five bucks or something.” He’d brought his wallet in his back pocket, since _Ima_ said you should always have your ID on you. All he had was his school ID, so he kept it in there. 

“No, no, hold on.” She opened her purse and took some money out of her wallet, then handed it to him. “That’s a hundred. Can you get at least ten tests? I want to be really sure. And please make it fast.” 

“You’re really sure no one’s gonna think I made a girl pregnant?” 

“This is Concord,” she said. “No one knows you here.” 

She was probably right. The kids from Concord didn’t go to the public schools in Lexington, just the private ones. “Okay,” he said. Maybe he could think of this as a mission. Yeah, it was a mission to help the bar mitzvah guys’ mom. That was noble, wasn’t it? “I can do this.” 

“Thank you,” she whispered, and crawled to the toilet on her knees. “Go. Now. Please. And please don’t tell anyone.” 

That had to mean she was about to throw up again. “I won’t,” Galil said. He left the bathroom, stopped to check the social hall – still empty – and ran out the glass doors leading to the street. He was going to be so late getting back to the service and _Ima_ and _Aba_ were totally going to kill him, but who else could help Dinah? Probably no one else would go to the bathroom anytime soon. 

He was covered in sweat when he got to the CVS, and it had started to soak into his suit jacket, gross. And he didn’t even know where to find pregnancy tests. _Ima_ didn’t talk about finding them when she was pregnant with Geula. “Excuse me,” he said in his best polite voice to the guy restocking batteries at the end of the nearest aisle, “do you know where I can find…uh, women’s stuff?” The words ‘pregnancy tests’ wouldn’t come out of his mouth. It was like they were stuck behind his tongue. 

“What,” said the guy, “like pads?” He had zits and was definitely older than Galil. _Faldi faldonza_. That probably meant Galil was going to have them all through high school and look like a pizza. 

“Yeah, pads,” Galil said. Pads were a period thing. Mrs. Edwards had said so. Pregnancy happened when you _didn’t_ have your period, so they’d probably be around there. 

The guy pointed. “Aisle seven.” 

“Okay, thanks.” Galil wiped the sweat off his forehead and jogged over. 

He hadn’t known there were so many kinds of things that had to do with periods. There were pads and tampons and cups (how did you even get those _in_ there?), and adult diapers that for men and women. A shelf of colorful bottles and tubes caught his eye and he stopped in front of them. “Astroglide personal lubricant,” he read off one of them. He’d have to ask _Ima_ what that meant. 

Then he saw some condoms, so he knew he had to be close, and _there_ were the pregnancy tests. Galil knelt down and squinted at them. There were so many kinds, and even the cheap CVS-brand ones were almost ten bucks each. With tax, ten of them would probably cost more than what Dinah had given him.

Nine, he decided, would probably work, so he stacked them in his arms and went up to the cash register. “I’ll just take these,” he said to the cashier, then squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment at how squeaky and scared his voice sounded. He wasn’t doing anything wrong and there was no reason for him to _be_ scared. 

The cashier blinked, then looked from him to the tests and back again. “Are these for…?” 

“They’re for my friends’ mom,” Galil blurted out. “She’s upchucking in the bathroom at the synagogue. They’re not for me.” He didn’t care if no one knew him here. This lady was as old as his _Savta_ and if she thought he was a hoodlum who made girls pregnant, he knew he’d start crying like a baby. 

“Okay, sweetie, calm down. I believe you.” She ran the tests across the scanner and dropped them in a bag. “That’ll be ninety seventy-five. Are you sure you have the money to buy these?” 

“Yeah.” He dug the money out of his pocket. “Five twenties. I have enough.” 

“Nine twenty-five is your change,” she said, and handed it to him, along with the bag of tests. He stuck the change in next to the receipt; that would just be one less thing he’d have to remember to do. “Tell your friends’ mom I said congratulations.” 

He nodded. “Thanks. If she’s pregnant, I’ll tell her.” 

“Sure, hon. Have a good day.” 

Galil clutched the bag tightly and ran back out of the drugstore and across the street. Wheels screeched and he staggered in place as a car braked hard and its driver honked at him. How could he have been so stupid? _Always look both ways!_ That was what had gotten Vince killed and now he was practically trying to get himself killed. Shivering, he sprinted across the street and felt cold sweat gather under his collar. 

The synagogue looked empty from outside, but it wasn’t. “Galil Aaron _Rabin_ ,” said _Ima_ as she stalked toward him, “ _eifo hayah?_ ” 

Galil resisted the urge to back up through the door and run away down the street. They’d probably call the police on him, but at least he wouldn’t be here. “ _B’vakasha, Ima_ -“ 

She cut him off with a sharp “ _Lo m’daber!_ ” and grabbed his bag. Immediately, her eyes widened. “ _Mah zeh_ , Galil, drug money?” 

Something started hurting inside him, and he couldn’t tell where. Did his own mother really think he was such a bad kid? “ _Ima_ -“ 

“ _Sheket!_ ” She pulled one of the tests out of the bag, and now her wide eyes narrowed and fixed on him. It felt like she was shining a laser into his face, and he had to look away, but that only seemed to make her think he really was guilty. “Have you gotten someone pregnant, Galil?” 

“ _Ima_ , I don’t even like girls!” he protested. She knew he didn’t have a girlfriend, and he definitely didn’t want one. There weren’t any girls at school who made his heart thump or anything. “They’re not for me.” 

She put her hands on her hips, the bag dangling from one wrist. “Then who are they for, Galil? And you better cough it up or you’re in trouble.” 

“ _Lo y’khol_ ,” he whispered. His lower lip started to tremble again. He’d told Dinah he wouldn’t tell anyone and only jerks broke promises. “I said I wouldn’t.” 

“Why, Galil?” She flung her hands out in front of her. “Why would you make a promise like that? There are things we can do to help, _Hashem, zeh ben sheli_ …” 

“Okay!” he cried. “Okay, it’s…it’s for…” He looked around fast. No one was there except her. Maybe if he kept quiet, it would mean he didn’t break his promise. “They’re for Dinah. She’s really sick in the bathroom. She _asked_ me to get them, _Ima_. I didn’t want to.” 

_Ima_ dropped the bag and the test box she’d been holding. “Dinah’s pregnant?” 

“No! I mean, I don’t know. That’s what I asked and she said she needed to find out ‘cause she was just gonna keep thinking she was sick. If she didn’t get the test, I mean.” Galil looked down at his shoes. “ _Lo co’eset, Ima, b’vakasha_.” 

_Ima_ picked up the bag and looked up at the sky, butt sticking up from being bent over. “ _Adonai_ , give me strength to accept my son’s unchangeable hero complex,” she muttered. “Galli, is Dinah still in the bathroom?”

“Probably,” Galil said, “if she didn’t go back in.” 

“All right.” She squeezed the bag of tests. “I’m going in there. Go back to the sanctuary and watch the rest of the service, Galil.” 

He crossed his arms. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going in with you.” He’d bought the tests, and besides, what if Dinah didn’t want to get in trouble and told _Ima_ that he really had been buying drugs or something? _Ima_ could be scary if you did something wrong. 

“ _Galil Aaron -_ ” 

“ – Rabin. I know, I know,” Galil interrupted. “But I gotta help.” 

She stared at him and he stared right back, furrowing his eyebrows like _Aba_. He was probably going to get in serious trouble, like when he was five and he climbed into the silverback gorilla cage at the zoo when _Ima_ and _Aba_ weren’t looking and beat his chest at the biggest gorilla when it beat its chest at him. He got a smack on his _tuchus_ then, but he really hoped he was too old to get one now. “Fine,” _Ima_ said, “but you keep your mouth shut. _M’daber li sheh m’vin_ , Galil.” 

“ _Ken_ ,” he agreed. “’Course, _Ima_.” 

“Good.” She walked over to the women’s room, Galil following, and banged on the door. “Anyone in there?” she asked, which was silly, because she just walked right on in anyway. 

“Sima?” Dinah said weakly. “Fuck. You caught Galil, didn’t you?” 

_Ima_ opened the stall door and kept it open against the wall with her palm. “Dinah, you sent my son out for pregnancy tests? What were you thinking? Push your hair back – it’s in your face.” 

Dinah shook her hair out of her face and looked past _Ima_ to where Galil stood behind her. “I’m sorry, Dinah,” he said. “ _Ima_ made me tell. I tried not to. And I told the cash-register lady at CVS, too.” 

“It’s okay,” Dinah said. “Sima, I’m the one who should be sorry. I just…I’ve missed a period and I’m sick as a dog. Don’t you remember me running out of there?” 

“I was concentrating a little too hard on what your sons were doing,” _Ima_ said. “Well, you’ve got me here now, _mitzuyan_. I’ll help you take a test. Remember, you’ve got to soak it in the pee, not just pee on it.” 

Galil shifted in place. “I don’t think I wanna come in there with you when you pee,” he said. He didn’t even like to pee when there were other guys in the bathroom. 

_Ima_ laughed. “Didn’t think so,” she said, and handed Dinah a test. “You know what to do.” 

“You said I have to soak it in the pee,” Dinah said. “I don’t have a cup.” 

“No problem. There’s cups under the sink here.” _Ima_ went to the little cabinet under the sink and pulled out a couple of Dixie cups, which had cartoon dogs on them. Then she passed them to Dinah, who shut the door. “Sorry about Galil, but he refused to leave. I think it might be time for me to kick him out now.” 

Dinah was quiet for a second, then said, “No, I guess he can stay. We all watched you have Geula. And I might need someone to keep me from banging my head against the wall.” 

“Okay,” Galil told her. “I won’t let you do that.” 

“Thanks so much.” Dinah closed the stall door, and Galil heard her opening the box. “It’s go time.” 

He put his fingers in his ears and hummed as soon as he heard her zipper go down so he wouldn’t have to hear her pee. After counting off exactly thirty seconds under his breath, he looked at _Ima_ and said, loudly so he could hear it through his plugged ears, “Is it safe?” 

“Yes.” 

Galil took his fingers away. “Why do you have to use pee?” he asked. “They didn’t tell us why in health class, just the, um, reproductive cycle.” That was a way better term for it than what Phil called it, which was ‘pole in a hole.’ 

“There’s a hormone in it called hCG,” said Dinah. “It measures something about the baby implanting. You’d have to ask your health teacher for a better explanation, or Bill.” 

“Bill,” he said. “I don’t like hearing about it in class. All the guys start laughing. It’s so immature. And sometimes they throw paper balls at the girls.” The only unit he’d liked so far was the group work about drugs and alcohol, where they’d drawn posters and done research about what substance abuse did to the body. Even the icky pictures were interesting. 

Dinah flushed the toilet, making him jump, and stood up in the stall – he could see her ankles straighten. “I have to wait another minute, maybe,” she said. “The result will show up soon.” 

Galil dug his heel into the floor and closed his eyes. At least if Dinah was pregnant, she’d probably have the baby in a hospital and he _definitely_ wouldn’t have to watch. He still sometimes dreamed about _Ima_ having Geula on the forge floor, with her face so red and her legs bent far apart as she squatted. Sometimes in his dream, blood came out of her instead of a baby, and he woke up sweaty and scared. _I can’t have babies_ , he reminded himself as his heart sped up. He could only make them, and that meant they couldn’t kill him. 

“Fuck,” Dinah said suddenly. 

“What?” _Ima_ asked. “The test?” 

“Yup,” Dinah answered. “I’m fucking pregnant.” 

Galil sat down on the floor and put his arms around his knees, like he’d seen Dinah do earlier. “Wow,” he said. “Um…congratulations? Is it okay to say that?” Maybe she didn’t want a baby. Maybe she was going to have an abortion. She probably wouldn’t want any congratulations if she was. 

“No,” said Dinah with a sigh, “it’s a good thing.” She sat down on the toilet seat hard enough that he could hear it. “I wanted to have kids with Boaz, but not _now_. Fuck Boaz and his stupid fucking potent sperm. I swear, none of our condoms broke.” 

_Ima_ cleared her throat. “ _Nu_ , it’s a tough time, but tone down the swear words a little?” 

“Sorry, Sima.” Another sigh. “The boys have been working so hard, and Phil’s going to high school next year, and…I don’t know, they just don’t need this.” She kicked the bag of tests out of the stall through the gap under the wall. 

_Ima_ went and picked up the bag, then leaned against the stall wall, a hand on the metal like she was supporting Dinah instead of herself. “So what are you going to do?” 

There was another period of silence, this one longer. “Propose,” Dinah finally said. 

His mother turned her head and rested her forehead against the wall. “Dinah, you shouldn’t marry him just because you’re pregnant,” she said. “It’s 2016. No one has to do that anymore.” 

“No, I was planning on doing it soon anyway,” said Dinah. “Maybe over Thanksgiving or Hanukkah – I didn’t really plan it out much. Guess I’m moving it up.” 

“And you’re absolutely sure about this?” _Ima_ didn’t look like she believed her; her expression was like the one she wore when Geula started whining about something. “You can tell me the truth.” 

“Yes, Sima, I’m sure. You know how much I love Boaz.” Dinah chuckled. “I mean, look at me. He knocked me up and I haven’t gone out to kill him for it yet.” 

Galil raised his hand (he didn’t know why, but it seemed like the polite thing to do). “I bet Boaz will be really happy when you propose,” he said. “He loves you a whole lot.” 

Dinah let out a laugh through her nose; he could practically hear her smiling. “You have a good point,” she said. “Let me think about how to do this. You guys can go back to the service. I’ll be in in a few minutes – just gotta put these tests under the sink for the next schlemiel-ette who gets sick at synagogue.” 

“Are you sure?” _Ima_ asked. 

“Yeah, I’m sure. I feel a lot less sick now.” 

“Well, all right.” _Ima_ took Galil’s hand. “Come on, Galli, I think we’ve been away long enough.” 

They slipped back in quietly through the door, and luckily, Phil and Caleb were chanting the blessing for a switch to a different section of the _parasha_ and nobody was looking their way except _Aba_. “What the hell took you so long?” he whispered when Galil and _Ima_ sat down. “You missed half the service. They’re almost on to the _haftarah_.” 

_Ima_ rolled her eyes. “Don’t exaggerate, Gad,” she said. “We didn’t miss half the service. Galil just took a while in the bathroom.” 

Good, she wasn’t telling Dinah’s secret. “Yeah,” Galil whispered back, “I had diarrhea.” 

_Aba’s_ eyebrows came down and he drew his lips back from his teeth, so obviously grossed out. “Great,” he said sarcastically. “Congratulations. I didn’t need to know that.” 

“ _Shhh_ ,” Uncle Omer hissed. “People are trying to listen!” It didn’t come out super-loud, so he must have had his hearing aid turned up. It got really embarrassing when he didn’t and started shouting in public about how people mumbled all the time. 

Galil took the _siddur_ out from the pocket on the seat in front of him and started to read again as he listened to Phil chant. He had a nice voice; it was good luck that he and _Ima_ had come back in before one of Phil’s sections. Caleb would probably get better as he got older, but right now, he just sucked. 

That was the last section. Phil and Caleb sang the _b’rakha_ together to end it, and then Rabbi Fleischer came up to the podium. “If you’ll turn to the marked section in your books,” he said, “we’ll begin the _haftarah_ for today.” 

Phil, Caleb, and the rabbi sang the blessing together, then both Phil and Caleb started singing together. Galil flipped to the bookmarked section and started reading the translation. _Shout, O barren one, You who bore no child._ He smiled and pinched his nose to keep from snorting. With everything he’d just gone through for Dinah, this was the most ironic thing he’d read since he learned what ‘irony’ meant in English class. 

Caleb’s voice actually kind of complemented Phil’s, though, so Galil closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat to let the music wash over him. “Galli,” said Geula from Uncle Omer’s lap, and touched his hand. He held her fingers in his palm and squeezed, and she quieted down with a satisfied little sound. 

“Thank you, Phil and Caleb,” said Rabbi Fleischer when they finished, “you’ve done a wonderful job.” He cleared his throat. “I’d now like to invite both of you to give your _d’rash_ \- for those of you who aren’t familiar with Jewish services, that’s a speech given by the bar or bat mitzvah that combines insight on their _parasha_ with insight on their own life.” Galil opened his eyes in time to see the rabbi gesture Phil and Caleb, who straightened up immediately, to come closer. “Take it away, you two,” he said, and a quiet laugh went through the congregation. Galil smiled, too. You didn’t think about people saying ‘take it away’ at a synagogue service. 

Phil looked at Caleb, who nodded, and went up to the podium. “Today, I’m not a man,” he said, and the words rang out through the room, echoing from the high ceiling. Suddenly, Galil could hear Phil’s uncle Theo in his voice, though it wasn’t as deep. “Today, I’m fourteen. My brother and I won’t be men for a while, and I know I have a lot to learn.” 

Caleb walked up to his brother’s side and lifted his chin. “Our dad died about three years ago.” He pressed his shoulder against Phil’s, and Phil bumped him back. “Some people said that we were the men in the family when he died, but we weren’t. Mom, Uncle Theo, and Uncle Bill helped us mourn him. Uncle Theo and Uncle Bill asked us to stay at their house so they could take care of us, and Mom got a job even though she lost her husband. Someday, Phil and I hope we’ll become responsible adults like the adults in our lives. Right now, we’re trying our best to make that happen.” 

Galil leaned forward in his seat. “They beat me up,” he said, looking at _Ima_ , “but I think they’re better people now.” 

_Ima_ put her arm around him and kissed the top of his head. “I think so, too.” 

Phil shuffled some papers on the podium (okay, so they _hadn’t_ memorized the speech, which meant Galil wouldn’t have to, either) and squared his shoulders. “The portion that Caleb and I read today requires knowledge of the historical context,” he said. Yeah, someone had definitely helped him with his wording. “There are a lot of prohibitions there about marriage and…and sexual customs” – his cheeks went visibly red even from a distance “ – and most of it doesn’t apply today. It’s not considered okay anymore to marry a captured slave woman, and when it happens, it’s against the law. But some of the rules talk more about taking responsibility and giving to others, and that’s the message Caleb and I want to talk about.” 

“ _Ki Teitzei_ says that a man who enters a vineyard or field can take as much food as he wants to fill his belly, but he can’t take more than his share to use later,” Caleb said. “Ever since we started Hebrew school, we’ve learned a lot about _tikkun olam_. That means ‘repairing the world’ in Hebrew, and Jewish people have put it in our laws since the beginning of Judaism. A good example is a translation of a line I read today, which goes ‘When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow’. If you have more food or money than you need, it’s your responsibility to give to others, because that’s the right thing to do.” 

_We’re lucky_ , Galil thought. They were lucky that _Aba_ had a job that he liked and that also paid well, and that _Ima_ could work from home with her jewels and her loupe. They always gave – not a tenth like the Torah said, but a lot. Someday he would be old enough to drive, and then he’d start volunteering at food banks like Uncle Omer did. 

Caleb and Phil skipped over the weird sex parts of the _parasha_ in the rest of their speech, and they didn’t talk much about the _haftarah_ , except for the part about “But My loyalty shall never move from you / Nor My covenant of friendship be shaken,” which they quoted to talk about friendship and responsibility instead of God saying He would take people back. 

Then they started thanking people, which was familiar from all the girls’ bat mitzvahs Galil had gone to this year already. First they thanked their mother, and their uncles, and their grandma and step-grandpa because they’d made the trip from Australia, and then they talked about their father and their mother’s parents because they couldn’t be there. Then, finally – “We’d like to thank all the honorary members of our family at the Lexington Hillel,” Caleb said, “especially Galil Rabin and Oreet Reisberg, who are the two friends our age. We’ve known them all our lives and they’ve helped us realize that Judaism is more than ‘an old people’s game’, like Uncle Theo says.” 

“Dat’s Galli,” Geula commented. “Galil Rabin.” 

“And Geula Rabin, too,” _Ima_ said, smiling at Geula as Phil and Caleb finished their speech with some joke about a fountain pen that Galil didn’t understand. They probably got it from Theo, who was kind of weird in the best way, which meant that he didn’t mind talking about Star Trek and Disney. 

The rest of the service was familiar: the _Hatzi_ Kaddish and the Mourner’s Kaddish and _Aleinu_ , and then _Adon Olam_ at the end. Phil and Caleb, in Rabbi Fleischer’s place, invited all the kids in the congregation to come up and sing _Adon Olam_ with them, so Galil took Geula up to the _bima_. He scanned the congregation while he sang, and found Dinah in the front row; she winked at him and waved with two fingers. 

Caleb came up to him after they’d made the blessings over wine and challah and gave him a hug. “Hey! Where were you? You missed all the good parts.” 

“Bathroom,” Galil said. “I had diarrhea.” It had worked on _Aba_. 

“Ew!” said Phil as he walked over with a fistful of challah. “You don’t have food poisoning, right?” 

“No, just diarrhea.” When he gave _Aba_ the excuse, his father had backed off, and he _really_ didn’t want to start spinning a whole story about why he had fake diarrhea to Phil. “So you guys are having your party right after this, right?” 

Caleb stretched his arms out in front of him and cracked his knuckles. “Yeah. It’s cheaper. And it would totally suck if we had to wait all afternoon to start celebrating. I don’t know how other people do it.” 

“Me neither,” said Galil. “I don’t know if I want a party.” Phil and Caleb were the kids who talked to him most at school, at least before Phil graduated and went to high school. Some of the people in the chess club were nice, and the guys on the wrestling team (Galil knew he sucked, but it was kind of fun – he’d probably quit after eighth grade, though), but all his guy friends just liked to talk about girls. What was there to talk about, anyway? Girls were people like anyone else. Some of them were pretty, but the things his teammates said about them could get really disgusting. 

“Okay,” Phil said, shrugging. “You don’t have to.” Then he pointed to the bottom of the steps up to the _bima_. “I think your family’s waiting for you. We should probably go find Mom, anyway. Where was she, anyway? She missed the best parts, too.” 

Galil’s mind suddenly came up blank. The excuse he’d used for himself probably wouldn’t work a second time, so… “I bet she has her period,” he said, blurting out the first thing that popped into his head. Now both Phil and Caleb made faces. “Sorry. She has girl stuff, too, right? I’ll see you guys at the party.” 

He ran down the steps and put his arm around _Aba’s_ broad back. That always made him feel more comfortable. “Hi, _Aba_. Are we going to the party now?” He watched Dinah walk up to the _bima_ and give Phil and Caleb a big group hug, which Boaz joined a few seconds later. “I’m hungry.” 

Uncle Omer touched his hearing aid. “What?” 

Maybe it hadn’t been turned up after all. “I’m _hungry_ ,” Galil repeated loudly. “I asked if we’re going to the party.” 

“ _Ken, akhshav_ ,” said _Ima_ , and looked at _Aba_. “Gadi, _yesh l’kha ha’_ GPS? Dinah booked the Scout House. I don’t want us getting lost again.” 

“That was when Omer was driving,” said _Aba_. “ _Al tirah_.” He talked in Hebrew a little less than _Ima_ did. Galil’s friend Ben from Hebrew school, whose parents had both been born in America, once told Galil that it was like switching between two TV stations to listen to _Aba_ and _Ima_ talk. 

“ _Al tirah_ , he says,” _Ima_ muttered, but she smiled at _Aba_. “I’m not all that worried. _Tzarikh ha’beit shimush_ , anyone?” 

Geula grabbed Uncle Omer’s hand. “My diapey,” she said. 

“Okay, okay.” Uncle Omer picked her up, and _Ima_ handed him her purse. “I’ll meet you all at the car in a few minutes.” He shouldered his way through the crowd of people going up the _bima_ steps to congratulate Phil and Caleb, and disappeared. 

Galil followed his parents out to their car and got into the back seat while _Aba_ fiddled with Geula’s car seat. They used to have a Volvo, but after Geula was born and all her stuff needed to be brought everywhere, they traded it in for a minivan. Geula got one of the middle seats and her stuff got another – there used to be more when she was still bottle-feeding and stuff. Now it was just full of stuffed animals. “ _Ima_ , can we turn on the heat?” Galil asked after he’d buckled himself in, wrapping his arms around himself. “It’s cold in here.” 

“Just wait for Uncle Omer, _motek_ ,” said _Ima_. “Having the engine on wastes gas.” 

Galil sucked his lips into his mouth and huddled in his seat. Before too long, just like he’d said, Uncle Omer came up to the car with Geula in his arms and _Ima’s_ purse slung over his arm like Grandma Rabin wore hers. “We need changing tables in the men’s room,” he reported, buckled Geula into her car seat, and climbed into the back seat next to Galil. Galil immediately leaned against him; Uncle Omer was always warm. “Ready?” 

“Yup.” _Aba_ turned the car on, and they were on their way. 

It only took a few minutes to get to the party place. “Wow,” Galil said, and unbuckled as soon as the car stopped moving. “It’s nice here!” The Scout House looked all colonial like Theo’s house, only way bigger, and it was painted bright white. “I bet it really shows the dirt. Do you have to wash a house like this?” 

“Probably,” said Uncle Omer, “but who’d want to?” 

Galil got out of the car and stretched his legs, squinting against the noon sun. It surprised him, but they weren’t the first ones there. A few cars had already pulled up and kids were spilling out of them, probably Phil and Caleb’s friends who hadn’t been at the service. A tall boy with curly dark hair and skin a little darker than _Savta’s_ waved at Galil, and he waved back, feeling his belly warm up. “Look, _Ima_ ,” he said, “other people to talk to. I won’t bother you the whole party.” His parents got all worried when he stuck by them last Hanukkah. What was the big deal? They were fun. 

“Did they really think this through?” _Aba_ asked. “Dinah’s probably gonna be one of the last people to leave the synagogue, and that means a bunch of kids milling around with nothing to – oh. _There_ they are.” Galil followed his gaze and found Dinah’s car pulling into the parking lot. There was a bow tied on top of the car. 

“Guess you were wrong, _Aba_ ,” Galil said. “They’re here.” 

The Adler-Derenskys (and one Budin, since Boaz was in there) piled out of the car, and Caleb ran to Galil again. “Hey, ready for the party?” he said breathlessly. “And I forgot to ask, did you like the speech?” 

“Yeah.” Galil patted him on the back. “Thanks, Caleb. And Phil.” He nodded at Phil. “So what kind of food are we having? I’m starving.” 

“It’s a buffet,” said Phil. “You can go in, you know. Everything should be set up. Mom asked the caterer to come in a couple hours early so we could get the party started when everyone got here. Hold on.” He shaded his eyes and squinted. “Okay, the lacrosse guys are here. See you later!” He held his hand up for a high-five and ran off when Caleb slapped it. 

Galil sniffed the air and his stomach rumbled. He couldn’t be sure, but he _thought_ it smelled like burgers, which meant they probably had sliders inside. Breakfast suddenly seemed so long ago. “ _Ima_ ,” he called, “is it okay if you go in? Or do you need me to get a table with you?” 

“Go on ahead,” said _Ima_. “Go make friends, _motek_. We’ll see you inside whenever we regroup.” 

Caleb smiled at him. “Okay, let’s go!” 

They ran up the steps and into the house, where the food smell hit Galil in the face as soon as he got in the door. Now his stomach growled loudly, and Caleb laughed. “I’m hungry, too,” he said. “Come on, we have sliders and stuff. Mom didn’t tell us everything so we’d be surprised. Come on.” 

“Score!” Galil exclaimed, and ran ahead. In the main hall, a bunch of round tables had been set up around a dance floor in the center, just like all the other bat mitzvahs (and a few bar mitzvahs for some of the eighth-graders in the chess club) he’d been to already. Phil was already sitting at one of the tables with his friends and some of the other tables were filling up, but apart from that, the place looked kind of empty – including the stage. “Did you guys get a DJ?” 

“No.” Caleb frowned. “I thought I told you already. Benny’s DJing.” 

“Good choice,” Galil said. Benny liked to listen to klezmer music and Celtic Woman and even country music, which he’d found out when Benny picked him up from a wrestling match once. But he totally looked like a DJ, or maybe a drummer in a metal band. He sometimes drummed on his belly to make Geula laugh. “Are you paying him?” 

“Nope, he volunteered. Said it was his family rate ‘cause Boaz is dating my mom.” 

They would be more than just ‘dating’ soon if Boaz said yes to Dinah today. Galil sucked in his cheeks and tried his hardest to keep a straight face. “Okay. That’s nice of him.” 

“Everyone?” Dinah’s voice sounded out from behind him. She clapped her hands. “You can start eating. The music will be on soon and then you can start dancing. We’re doing an informal vibe here.” 

“Mom,” Caleb whined, “no one says ‘vibe’ anymore.” 

But Galil didn’t need to be told twice. He made a beeline to the closest of the buffet tables, took a plate, and lifted up the metal dome on the Sterno dish. Hot, delicious air hit him so hard he could almost taste it, and the sliders inside practically looked up at him as if to say ‘Eat us, Galil!’ “Awesome,” he said, and piled four on his plate. 

Caleb came over and picked up a plate, Phil and his friends right behind him, as Galil was moving on to the second dish. This one was an open vegetable platter, but vegetables were good for him, so he grabbed some red pepper slices, carrots, and cucumbers. “Told you the food was good,” Caleb said. “It’s not kosher, though. We’re having ice cream and stuff. Do you think your uncle will mind?” 

Galil shook his head. “Uh-uh. Uncle Omer doesn’t really keep kosher. He just likes to be _davka_.” 

“What’s _davka_ mean?” 

“Contrary,” Galil said. “ _Aba_ uses a swear word when he translates it.” He gave Phil’s friends a once-over and felt his cheeks go hot. Why was he blushing? There wasn’t any freaking reason for it, just Phil and his good-looking friends. Galil smoothed his suit jacket down over his butt and, for the millionth time, wondered why God had chosen to make him so ugly and lumpy.

He filled up his plate with just about everything from the two buffet tables, including a bunch of two-bite brownies and some kind of fruit squares. By the time he was finished, his family had found a table, so he went to sit by them. “Galil, you get some food to go with your dessert?” asked Uncle Omer. 

“I got vegetables,” Galil said. “They’re just under here.” He set his plate down and started in on a slider. “I can keep watch on the table. You guys should go up.” 

“Thanks, _motek_.” _Ima_ reached over and grabbed one of his fruit squares. 

“Hey!” 

“ _Sheket_. You’ve got plenty.” She put the entire thing in her mouth and spoke through the crumbs. “I’ll go take your sister up. Gadi, Omer, come if you want to. Galli, I’ll let you hold down the fort. You’re responsible enough.” 

Galil ducked his head and felt his smile spread. _Responsible_. That was a nice word to hear. Maybe that meant _Ima_ and _Aba_ would let him babysit Geula soon, and even pay him for it. 

“Galil!” Benny Budin leaned into Galil’s space and tapped him on the shoulder as his family got up. “I’m startin’ the music soon. Any requests? I’ve got lots of music. Pop an’ everything, if that’s yer fancy.” 

“That’s okay, Benny,” Galil said, “but thanks. You choose.” He held up a two-bite brownie. _Ima_ was right; he could always get more, and Benny would probably be up on stage for hours without food. “Do you want this?” 

Benny took it and popped it in his mouth. “Don’t mind if I do, Gal, ta very much.” He patted the back of Galil’s neck, which was a weird place to pat, but Galil wasn’t about to say anything, since Benny was being nice. “Right, then. I’m off.” 

Galil watched him go, then settled in to eat and people-watch for a while. Munching on a slider, he followed the paths of a few of Phil and Caleb’s friends. The girls really did have what Uncle Omer called ‘colorful plumage.’ They weren’t wearing feathers, of course (that had confused the heck out of him the first time Uncle Omer said it, and _Aba_ had laughed), but most of them had on sparkly dresses, high heels, and dangling earrings. They kind of did look like tropical birds. 

The guys were pretty much either in suits or in nice shirts with khakis. To his relief, Galil saw that most of them had plates even fuller than his, so that meant his desserts and sliders weren’t just him being a fatty. But the person with the most food of all wasn’t a teenager – it was Theo, who was sitting at a nearby table with Bill, Freddy, and Dinah. “He has more brownies than I do!” Galil said under his breath. 

Theo saw him, or maybe heard him, lifted his head, and waved. “Hey, Galil!” he said, and pointed to his plate with a smirk. “Have you ever seen this many brownies in one place? Bill’s trying to keep me from eating them. I say it’s a free country. What do you think?” 

“Um…” Galil narrowed his eyes at the pile of brownies. There really were a lot. “I mean, if your heart’s okay…” 

“That’s the spirit,” Theo said. Freddy shot out a hand, stole one of the brownies, and started happily chewing. “Hey, kid, that’s my dessert.” 

“Look at it this way,” said Bill. “He’s helping to preserve your cardiovascular health.” 

Freddy finished his brownie and rested his elbows on the table. “I like parties,” he said contentedly. “I haven’t got to eat vegetables.” 

Bill snorted. “Oh, yes, you do. I know you like bell peppers. Eat up the ones on your plate, Freddy. I found the least pithy ones for you.” 

“Galil?” _Ima_ took her seat beside him as _Aba_ set his plate down on the table and helped Geula into a chair. “Enjoying yourself?” 

“Can’t find a damn high chair in this place,” _Aba_ grumbled. 

_Ima_ blew out her breath. “Yes, Gadi, we know.” She nodded at Uncle Omer, who sat down next to _Aba_ with a plate full of vegetables. He always said they would make his hearing better, even though Bill and all the doctors said that was a load of words Galil was definitely never allowed to say in the house. 

Galil smiled at _Ima_ and looked down at his plate, which was nearly empty. How had he eaten all of that so fast? He didn’t even remember most of the food, except that all of it had been good. “Yeah, I think I’m having a growth spurt,” he said. He _hoped_. If he didn’t get taller soon, then the guys he saw in the locker room after gym would probably call him a hairy dwarf gnome for the rest of his life. The guys on the wrestling team were cooler about it, but a lot of them were eighth-graders and kind of hairy, too. 

Up onstage, Benny blew into the microphone and then said, “All right, everyone, we’ve got some treats for you tonight. I’ve got a good playlist going, but if anyone has a request, they’re welcome to come on up and tell me. I’m Benny Budin, your DJ for this afternoon, and without further ado, here’s a tribute.” 

He fiddled with an iPod in its speaker and suddenly, ‘Heroes’ started playing. Galil wiggled in his seat and watched a few of Phil and Caleb’s friends start towards the dance floor, followed by the rest of them. “I love Bowie,” he said. 

“He sure was great,” said Uncle Omer. “Did those kids like him before he died?” 

“Omer,” Dinah called from her table, “don’t be an elitist. And the answer is yes. I used to sing this to Phil and Caleb all the time when they were kids.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Whenever they were sick or winding each other up…Vince loved it, too.” 

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” _Aba_ said. “Tribute to both of them. I know Vince would love to see this.” 

Galil sucked in his cheeks and tilted his head, watching the kids on the dance floor. “I like Space Oddity, too,” he said, “but I like Major Tom better. The one by the other guy.” 

“Schilling?” Uncle Omer asked. 

“Yeah.” Some of the boys and girls had paired up, girls’ arms around boys’ necks and boys’ hands on girls’ waists, but there wasn’t any grinding like there had been at the winter school dance last year. A couple of the teachers had to break some people up and it was really embarrassing, especially when Galil had to explain to _Ima_ why everyone had gotten sent home early. “Do you think David Bowie was a hero, Uncle Omer?” 

“Mm,” Uncle Omer said. “Yeah, maybe. Depends on your definition of hero, I guess. He brought a lot of good to people’s lives.” He touched Galil’s back. “Are you going up there, Gal? Looks like you want to dance. Ants in your jockey shorts.” 

Galil couldn’t help laughing through his nose. “That’s not what the expression is.” He boosted his head up on his hands. “I guess I’ll go, but I kind of don’t want to dance by myself.” 

“Take your sister,” _Ima_ suggested. “She’s getting antsy, too. Geula, _matoki_ , want to go dance? _Ha’akh shelakh tzarikh_.” 

“ _Ken_ ,” said Geula, and sucked on her fingers, which Galil noticed were covered in chocolate. “Galil _sheli_.” 

_Aba_ helped Geula out of her seat and cleaned her fingers off with a napkin and some water out of his glass. “Don’t want to smear chocolate on people’s clothes, do we?” he asked, but Galil thought it was rhetorical, since she just looked at him instead of answering. “Okay, all clean. Go with Galli.” 

“That sounds kind of like ‘go with God,’ _Aba_ ,” Galil said as he took Geula’s hand. “You punned.” 

“And _that_ sounds like a fart euphemism,” _Aba_ countered. “See, we can both be funny today.” 

Parents were so gross. Galil ignored the ‘fart euphemism’ thing and brought Geula up to the dance floor. ‘Heroes’ had ended, and now Benny called “Here’s an oldie for you kids. It’s a new song for us, of course, but it should be old for you.” 

The song was ‘Single Ladies,’ and Geula started dancing – hopping from foot to foot, really, which was dancing for her – as soon as the beat began. “I remember this song,” Galil said to no one in particular. It had played on the radio all the time when he was little and _Ima_ or _Aba_ drove somewhere. 

“I wanna go _up_ , Galli,” Geula said, which he didn’t think was really a response, but okay. He lifted her into his arms with a grunt and for lack of a better way to dance, shook her a little from side to side. Dancing with girls was weird enough without doing it with a two-and-a-half-year-old you had to hold up. 

His sister started kicking to get down after the song was finished, so Galil did, then watched her run back to the table. He rubbed his forehead and turned around to see if there were fewer people by the food, only to see Freddy next to him. “Galil, will you dance with me?” Freddy asked. “Uncles won’t dance ‘til later. Uncle Bill says he has got to finish his biscuits first.” 

“Sure,” Galil said. Even Freddy looked better than he did and he was only six – but no, this wasn’t the time. He shoved the thought into a cobwebby part of his brain to look at again later and took Freddy’s sweaty hands. 

The song ended soon and Freddy let go of his hands. “You’re a good dancer, Galil!” he said. “Oh, Uncle Theo’s here! Want to dance with us, Galil? Please dance with us.” 

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Theo said. “How about it, Galil? We can do a three-person circle.” 

So they danced that way for two songs, and then Freddy complained that he was dizzy. _Ima_ and _Aba_ came up and danced with him and Theo for two more, but then Galil was the one who had to stop. “I’m really sweaty,” he said. That was kind of an understatement. He thought he could feel the sweat pouring out of his armpits. “I’m gonna go outside and get some air, okay?” 

“Sure, _motek_ ,” _Ima_ said. “I’m kind of overheated myself.” 

Galil headed out of the hall and into the front hallway, but stopped before he could reach the door. It was cooler out here, anyway, and it looked like it was raining outside. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths of air that didn’t smell like teenage sweat, then startled as someone bumped into him. “Oh, sorry.” It was a female voice. Galil blinked at the blonde girl in front of him, who had on a sleeveless purple dress that went to her knees. In her heels, she was way taller than him – he really _was_ a hairy dwarf gnome. “Hey, I don’t think I know you,” she said. “Are you one of Caleb’s friends?” 

“Kind of. Our families are friends and we go to school together.” 

“Huh.” She pursed her lips. “I saw you at the service. Sorry I never got your name. I’m Sig.” 

“You’re sick?” His luck was crappy today with people throwing up, then. 

Flipping her wavy, sandy-colored bangs out of her eyes, she smiled and held out her hand. “No, _Sig_. Sigrid. Phil and I are in the same grade. He’s friends with some people at my school.” 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Galil.” He shook her hand. 

Her eyebrows went up at that. “You’re the one from the speech?” 

_Why_ did Phil and Caleb have to say that? Now everyone was going to think he was a suck-up. “Yeah. I mean…” His neck and ears heated up. “We’ve just known each other a long time. It’s not a big deal.” Her brows furrowed now and her lips tightened all over again. “Was it something I said? I’m really sorry.” 

“No…no, I just…I’ve heard your name before. Somewhere.” Sig closed her eyes and she whispered something to herself. “Galil, _Galil_ ,” she murmured a little bit louder. “Got it!” Her eyes snapped open. “Okay, do you know Luukas Greenwood?” 

“Yeah!” Holy crap, it had been a while since he heard that name. “Why? Have you talked to him? He’s my friend, too. Was, I guess. We haven’t talked in ages.” Galil’s words came out all in a clump, falling over each other, but it had just felt so _good_ to talk to Luukas. He was really weird, the best kind of weird, and he never told Galil off for saying random stuff about Disney movies. 

“Wow.” Sig held up her hands and grinned. “You do know him. Okay, we were in the same preschool. My dad and his dad are both professors at Wentworth.” 

Luukas’s dad had been at Bill and Theo’s wedding. Galil let his eyes drift off to the side, remembering – his dad’s hair was lighter than his, white-blond instead of light blond. “Randy Greenwood, right?” 

“He _really_ doesn’t like it when people call him that,” said Sig, “except kids. My brother and sister can call him that. But yeah, that’s Doctor Greenwood. He’s really nice.” 

“Theo doesn’t like him,” Galil said. 

Her eyes bugged out. “Are you talking about Theo _Derensky?_ ” 

“Yeah.” 

“Wow.” She made her lips into a tiny circle and blew out her breath. “You don’t want to know the stuff Dr. Greenwood calls him. But don’t worry,” she added with a wink, “I won’t hold it against you.” She cocked her head. “You’re sweet for a kid. You want to dance in a little bit?” 

Galil felt his heart speed up, and sweat began to wet his armpits again. “I mean…okay? But just as friends, ‘cause I don’t know you and stuff.” 

“Oh, I know.” She bent down and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone, but I kind of like Phil, anyway.” 

That wasn’t really a surprise. Phil was tall and thin and his hair looked just like _Ima’s_ gold wedding ring when the sun shone on it. “I won’t tell anyone,” Galil whispered back. Except his stuffed bear, but he still told Dubi Dov everything, even how _Aba_ still laughed when he said the bear’s name. “I’m not so sweaty anymore. I think I’m gonna sit outside for a little and then go back and dance.” 

“Okay. See you later.” 

Galil waved. “Yeah, see you – wait! Hey, wait!” Sig turned on her heel towards him. “Have you seen Luukas lately? I want to get back in touch with him if I can.” 

“Sorry,” Sig said with an apologetic frown, “I haven’t even gotten a chance to talk to him in a while. He’s at some magnet school in Boston. I can see if his dad will give you his e-mail address or something…” 

“No, you don’t need to go to the trouble. Honest.” Getting Randy Greenwood involved would probably just cause a ruckus. He wasn’t worth that kind of effort. He’d just have to find Luukas himself someday. “Have a good time. I’ll dance with you later.” 

He sat outside on the stairs for a while, letting the wind blow through his hair. His bar mitzvah would probably be a lot like this – not the crazy-relatives part, but the small, simple gathering part. Inviting the kids from Hebrew school was a given, and some of the chess club and wrestling kids would come if he asked, and definitely everyone from Hillel was getting an invite. Galil just hoped that Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t start anything with _Saba_ and _Savta_ in public, especially Grandma. _Aba_ called her a firecracker. 

There were fewer people dancing when he got back into the hall; it looked like a lot of people were going back to the food tables. Creeping closer, he found out why. “Cake! Sweet!” He giggled at his pun and grabbed a plate of each kind of cake, vanilla and chocolate, then sat down to stuff his face. It had been a while since he’d had cake. “Hi, _Ima_.” 

“Hi, _motek_.” She shifted Geula, who looked like she’d fallen asleep, on her lap and stroked her hair. “They have cake up there?” 

“Yeah. You can have some if you want.” He pushed the plate of chocolate cake towards her. Vanilla was his favorite, but everyone else in the world liked chocolate. “Or I can get you some more.” 

_Ima_ waved the cake away. “ _Todah_ ,” she said, “ _aval ani_ stuffed. Why don’t you go socialize?” She pointed to Theo’s table, still minus Theo and now Bill, too. “I bet they’d like to see you.” 

“Okay,” Galil said. “I’ll go talk to Dinah – wait, she’s getting up.” Dinah looked both ways like she was walking across the street, which was weird, and started heading towards Bram and Boaz’s table. “I think she’s gonna go talk to Benny. Is it okay for me to go over there?” Benny had a full plate of food in front of him and a napkin pressed against his forehead. 

“Sure,” _Ima_ said. “He’s just taking a break.” 

He left his fork standing up in the vanilla cake and followed Dinah to the Budins’ table, standing a few paces back when he got there. It was rude to interrupt people’s conversations, and it looked like she wanted to talk to Boaz or maybe Benny – the brothers were sitting next to each other. “Boaz?” Dinah said, sat down in the empty seat next to him, and put her hand on his. “I want to ask you something.” 

Boaz wiped his mustache, which had 7-Up foam in it from the can on the table. “Of course, Dee. What is it?” 

She took a deep breath, let it out, and closed her fingers around his. “Will you marry me?” 

Galil’s heart bonged in his chest and suddenly, he found himself holding his breath. She was proposing _here_ , at the party? He had to hear this, even if it was rude. On his tiptoes, he crept closer and suppressed the urge to bend down behind Benny, which would probably make him even more conspicuous – he stood a little ways away from Bram instead. 

But his position gave him a good view into Boaz’s face, which meant he could see his eyes welling up with tears and his open mouth trembling. “ _Yes_ ,” he sobbed, and suddenly buried his face in his hands. “Oh, God, Dee!” 

Benny put both big arms around his brother, which was a really awkward position and made two of his chair legs come right off the ground. “There, there, Bo,” he said, “it’s all right. She’s asked ye to marry her, not told ye she’s dyin’.” He patted Boaz’s back, then took one hand away and gave Dinah a thumbs-up. “Good job, Dee! He doesn’t cry for just anything. Welcome to the family.” 

“Wait,” she said, “are you being sarcastic or serious?” 

“Serious.” Benny beamed at her. “Happy to have ye.” 

“Oh. Good. Boaz, I’m so sorry I made you cry, but…I’m happy you said yes. I…I mean, I was planning to propose soon, anyway, but I…” She bit her lip and chewed on it for a few moments. “Boaz, I’m pregnant.” 

Boaz took his hands away from his face, which had gone red and blotchy in the minute or so since he’d covered it; his eyes were still streaming, but now they were wide. “You are?” He gulped back another sob and wiped his nose on his sleeve. 

“Yeah.” She grabbed his hand again, and it didn’t even look like she cared that he’d cried all over it. That had to be true love. “I took a test today. That’s where I was when I missed so much of the service. I was puking in the bathroom. The only other people who know are Sima and Ga –“ She lifted her head and caught Galil’s eye. “ – lil.” Her small smile broadened. “Okay, someone’s a sneaky little spy today. Come over here. Tell Boaz I’m pregnant.” 

“She’s pregnant,” Galil echoed. “She peed and the test said so. I was there.” 

Boaz sprang up from his chair and clapped Galil on the back, and for a second, Galil thought he was going to fall over. “You’re a good man, Galil,” he choked out. “I don’t mind havin’ ye know before me. Now we’ve got to tell everyone.” The last word was barely intelligible, because he started crying into Galil’s suit with his head on his shoulder. 

Galil held his arms down stiff at his sides. What were you supposed to do when a grown man cried on you? “Please help me,” he said to Dinah as quietly as he could. “Tell people? Get him off me? Please?” 

“I’m on it,” Dinah said, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Theo!” she called. Theo turned around on the dance floor to look at her. “Theo, get over here. I have news.” 

Confusion filled Theo’s face, but he trotted over anyway. “Yeah? What’s your news?” 

“I proposed,” she told him. “Boaz and I are gonna get married. And I’m pregnant, too.” She was chewing on her lip again, but Galil didn’t know why. There was nothing to be scared of – she didn’t need to look so wound up. 

Theo slowly shook his head. “ _You_ proposed?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Did…did you only propose because you’re pregnant?” 

“No,” Galil said. “She was gonna do it anyway. She just moved it up, I promise. This isn’t like olden times.” _Ima_ had said it first, but he knew what that meant, even if she didn’t think he did. Medieval times were terrible for women in a lot of places. Theo said it still sucked for them now for some things, too. “It’s not a handgun wedding.” Boaz sniffled loudly into his ear. This was getting _so_ weird. 

“Shotgun wedding,” Theo said in his history professor voice, then stopped and shook his head. “Boaz, you knocked up my sister.” 

“Aye?” Boaz’s voice came out in a squeak, his face still hidden in Galil’s shirt. . “Please don’t kill me. We were bein’ safe. It was just an acci – oh _God!_ ” He interrupted himself with the exclamation as Theo grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him into a hug. 

Dinah squeezed her eyes shut, grabbed two handfuls of her hair, and yanked hard, then ran around the table and banged Theo on the back with both fists. “Jesus! Let _go_ of him, asshole!” 

“What?” Theo opened his arms and dropped Boaz, who landed on his feet, thank goodness. Galil stopped in the middle of his mouthed _faldi faldonza_ and said a fast mental ‘thank you’ to God instead. “Dee, I was giving him a hug.” 

“You’re being a dick!” She pressed her palms into her forehead. “Didn’t you hear Galil? This isn’t the Dark Ages.” 

“Dark Ages?” Bill appeared behind Theo, stomping his feet impatiently. “Theo, is there some reason you’ve abandoned me on the dance floor? I was actually having a good time before you –“ 

Theo cut Bill off by grabbing _him_ in a hug and lifting him off his feet. “Dee’s pregnant!” he said in a voice that Galil thought could probably be called a roar. “Boaz is a real Derensky now!” 

Bill sputtered and whacked Theo across the shoulder blades, just like Dinah. “Put me down, idiot!” 

Theo did as he was told, but then he hugged first Bill, then Dinah and Boaz together. “We got a lot of oops babies,” he said, and his voice was a little hysterical now, like he’d taken drugs or something. “Dee was an oops baby, Caleb was an oops baby, I’m pretty sure Phil was an oops baby…” 

“He wasn’t,” Dinah interrupted. “Up your ass, Theo.” She collapsed back into her chair and put her head down on the table. “And go fuck yourself.” 

“Not happening.” Theo crossed his arms. “Boaz, it’s a good thing you knocked her up now. If you guys were as old as Mama was when Dee was born, the baby might’ve turned out like her.” 

“I already told you to go fuck yourself,” Dinah said into the tablecloth. 

Theo gave her a noogie. “And I told you it’s not happening.” 

Boaz, who was still crying, hugged first Bram and then Benny. “I’m gonna be a da!” he bawled, and degenerated into more tears that required a group hug from his family, Theo, and Dinah. Galil stood awkwardly off to the side; he probably wouldn’t be welcome in a ‘we’re having a baby’ hug when all he’d done was find out about the baby.

“Damn,” Theo said when he surfaced from the hug, “what time is it?” 

Dinah looked at her watch. “Almost four.” 

“We’re gonna need to go in about an hour,” Theo said. “Need to feed the cats. Rug gets cranky when he isn’t fed on time. Bill, was Freddy still asleep when you checked?” 

“Yes,” said Bill. “I left him with Dwight and Noah. The last I saw, he was sleeping on Dwight’s lap. I think all the socializing wore him out.” 

Theo licked his lips. “Probably a sugar crash, too. Okay. Dee, is it time for Israeli dancing yet?” 

“Few minutes,” said Dinah. “You guys should get in a few more songs before everyone comes up to do the hora.” She kissed Boaz’s cheek. “Boaz, go dance with Galil and my brother. It’ll cheer you up.” 

“I’ll fire up the iPod!” Benny said. 

“I’m already cheered up,” Boaz said with a hiccup, wiping his eyes, “but aye, all right.” 

Sig was on the dance floor when Galil headed back with Boaz and Theo, so he danced with her to ‘Shake it Off’ and pretended he didn’t notice when she made googly eyes at Phil. Then it was time for the hora, and Benny came up and took his iPod off shuffle to put on the Israeli music. 

Theo held one of his hands while they danced the grapevine in a circle during the hora, but the curly-haired boy Galil had seen outside held his other hand, and he almost tripped over his feet a few times from how handsome he was up close. Why couldn’t he look like that? His belly felt all warm again – probably jealousy, but he never felt like that when he was jealous. That had to mean he was growing up and could appreciate people without wanting what they had, like _Aba_ said would happen to him. 

Everything started winding down after the group dances were finished. Galil went and got some more cake, then watched people leave and Theo try to convince Dinah to let him go. “No, Dee, seriously, I have to feed the cats,” he protested. “Rug’ll start biting. I promise I’ll say goodbye to Phil and Caleb before I leave.” 

“If you _must_ ,” said Dinah, but she smirked, so Galil thought she was probably kidding. “Go feed the cats. And tell Freddy he’s been so well-behaved here. I didn’t deal with parties that well at all when I was six.” 

Theo gave her a kiss, then started gathering up his stuff (and Freddy). Galil watched him go. _He_ had hair as thick as Galil’s, but it didn’t poof out like his. Maybe his hair would look like that if he grew it out long. He’d have to talk to _Ima_ about – 

“Handsome man, your uncle,” said a voice behind him. 

“Grindal!” Uncle Omer exclaimed. “You got an invite, you old bastard?” 

“Yes indeed.” The old man raised an eyebrow. He’d been at Theo and Bill’s wedding, hadn’t he? Galil thought he remembered seeing him there, dressed all in gray like he was now. “Omer, would you agree that Theodor is quite a handsome man?” 

Uncle Omer rolled his eyes. “He’s not Galil’s uncle,” he said, “and he’s married.” 

“Oh, I know.” Grindal’s eyes sparkled. “I’m quite happy about that. It doesn’t mean I can’t look.” 

“I guess it doesn’t,” _Ima_ said. “We should get going, too. Geula’s late for her afternoon nap.” 

Geula stirred on Uncle Omer’s lap. “ _No_ nap.” 

“Yes nap.” _Ima_ took her purse off the back of the chair. “Galli, we’re heading out.” 

“ _Ima?_ ” 

“Hm?” 

“Can I have a bar mitzvah like this?” he asked. “This one was so much fun.” 

_Ima_ smiled, but it was _Aba_ who answered. “Hell yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, lots of translations for this one. 
> 
> Hebrew Glossary  
>  _Parasha/Parashat_ : a portion of the Torah (Hebrew). Typically one is read at every Saturday service, including bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies. Phil and Caleb's bar mitzvah, taking place on September 17, 2016, does indeed include Parashat [_Ki Teitzei_](https://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/kiteitzei). And yes, the messed-up sex stuff is in there. (I did not know that.)  
>  _Eifo hayah?_ where were [you]?  
>  _B'vakasha, Ima_ : please, Mom  
>  _Lo m'daber:_ don't talk!  
>  _Ma zeh?_ : what's this?  
>  _Sheket!_ : be quiet!  
>  _Lo y'khol_ : I can't  
>  _Hashem, zeh ben sheli_ : God, this son of mine  
>  _Lo co'eset, Ima, b'vakasha_ : don't be mad, Mom, please  
>  _Adonai_ : another name for God  
>  _M'daber li sheh m'vin_ : tell me you understand  
>  _Ken_ : yes  
>  _Haftarah_ : a section from the non-Torah portion of the Jewish Bible that's read with most bar and bat mitzvahs after the _parasha_. I didn't have to have one because my bat mitzvah was in the afternoon, ha ha. The portion for _Ki Teitzei_ is a section from the Book of Isaiah.  
>  _Siddur_ : prayer book  
>  _B'rakha_ : blessing  
>  _D'rash_ : a speech given before the final part of the bar or bat mitzvah by the teenager in question, usually about how the _parasha_ and the learning thereof relates to their own life. Also lots of thanks, and a mention of pretty much every dead relative.  
>  _Tikkun olam_ : 'repairing the world,' a central tenet of Judaism.  
>  _Hatzi Kaddish, Aleinu, Adon Olam_ , etc: prayers at the end of a synagogue service  
>  _Bima_ : the platform at the front of the synagogue (synonymous to an altar in a church)  
>  _Ken, akhshav_ : yes, now  
>  _Yesh l'kha ha_ : do you have the -  
>  _Al tirah_ : a poetic, Biblical way of saying 'don't be afraid'  
>  _Tzarikh ha'beit shimush_ : need the bathroom  
>  _Davka_ : contrary (Yiddish origin)  
>  _Ha'akh shelakh tzarikh_ : your brother needs [to]  
>  _Todah, aval ani_ : thanks, but I'm -  
>  _Dubi Dov_ : lit. "bear cub bear," translating approximately to "Beary Bear." Yes, the first word does sound like 'doobie.' 
> 
> The explanation for the 'fountain pen' crack can be found [here](http://jewishwebsight.com/lifecycle/mitzvah.html).
> 
> I HUGELY love and appreciate all comments and encouragement. <3 As always, I'm godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr because seashadows was taken.


	23. Or a Young Hart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Freddy and Theo hit upon the idea of a lifetime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for cats doing gross stuff.

Theo pushed open the front door with the hand that Freddy wasn’t clinging to and waited for Bill to come in, then locked up behind him. “Well, Freddo,” he said, “how did you like your first bar mitzvah?” 

“I liked it a lot!” said Freddy, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Theo suppressed a snicker. He’d been about ready to fall asleep in the car, and now he was bouncing off the walls. Kids – they cracked him up. “Uncles? I’m thirsty. Can I have some water?” 

“Magic word,” Bill reminded him. 

“Oh.” Freddy stuck a finger in his mouth. “Please?” 

Bill smiled at him. “Then of course you may have some water.” He started towards the kitchen, trailed by Freddy, and Theo followed them. 

The light by the refrigerator was on, but otherwise the kitchen was dark, just as they’d left it that morning. Strangely enough, the cats were nowhere to be seen. “Rug and Carpet should be swarming all over me by now,” Theo said, and scratched his head. “You think they’re not actually hungry?” 

“ _I’m_ hungry,” Freddy said. “Look! Biscuits!” He pointed at the floor, where a partially-open package of cookies lay crushed and mauled. Suddenly, Theo realized why the cats were nowhere to be seen. “Can I have those biscuits?” 

“Dammit, Rug!” Theo said, and tossed the package in the trash. “We weren’t gone that long!” It had to be Rug. Stealing food was his MO, not Carpet’s, although Carpet could be convinced into mischief if he was in that kind of mood. Rug was not, after all, the one with the habit of knocking things off tables. 

“It could have happened hours ago,” Bill suggested. “We don’t know when exactly Rug tore into those.” He shook his head. “Bad, bad cat. And Freddy, how are you hungry? You ate your weight at the party.” 

Freddy sat down at the table and drummed the wood with his elbows. “I didn’t,” he said. “You said I’m forty pounds. I didn’t eat forty pounds. I’m just hungry.” 

Bill took a water glass out of the cabinet and scooped out some ice from the fridge, then filled it with water. “You can have a banana,” he said, and brought the water to Freddy, who started gulping it right away. “Full of potassium, you know. It’s good for you, and you’ve been sweating all that out.” 

“What’s potassium?” Freddy asked between gulps. 

“A vitamin,” Bill said. Theo hadn’t taken many science classes, but even he knew that that wasn’t quite true. There was potassium in a lot of stuff and it could be bad for you, too, right? He knew he’d heard Mama’s doctor talking about kidney issues when her heart really started failing, and potassium had had something to do with it, either as a consequence or as a cause.

“You need lots of potassium, buddy,” Theo said. “Bananas are good for you.” 

Bill brought a banana over and peeled it, then laid it on a napkin for Freddy. “Go on, eat up,” he said, “and then I think it’s time for you to have a bit of a lie-down. You fell asleep at the party.” 

“I did?” 

“You did,” Theo told him. “It’s okay that you don’t remember. Things got kind of crazy over there. Hey, I got good news from Aunt Dee, too.” Maybe right before Freddy went to bed wasn’t the best time to tell him the news, but whatever; he couldn’t hold it in. “You’re going to have a new cousin. Aunt Dee’s pregnant. Isn’t that great?” 

Freddy took a bite of his banana. “A baby?” he asked, mush-mouthed. “Like Sam’s sister?” 

“Yes, but littler,” Bill said. “You were that little once. Auntie Dee and Boaz are going to be parents, and Phil and Caleb will have a new little brother or sister.” 

“Oh,” Freddy said, washing his bite of banana down with some water. “Uncle Theo?” 

“Yeah?” Theo sat down next to him. Freddy grabbed his hand. “Do you have a question?” 

Freddy nodded, and frowned. “Boaz isn’t Phil and Caleb’s daddy,” he said, “but Auntie Dee is their mummy. Right?” 

“That’s right,” said Bill. 

Freddy took another bite of banana, but this time, he waited until he’d finished swallowing before talking again. “Where’s Phil and Caleb’s daddy?” 

Theo glanced at Bill, who shrugged. Oh, boy. Looked like he was doing this on his own. “Phil and Caleb’s daddy died a few years ago, Freddy,” he said. “His name was Vince. If he was alive right now, he’d be your Uncle Vince.” He sighed. “Aunt Dee might appreciate it if you give her a hug for that.” If, God forbid, something ever happened to Bill before his time, he knew he’d appreciate hugs about it three years later. 

“Okay. I will.” Freddy finished his water, then turned his serious little face up towards Theo. “How did he die?” 

“He was in an accident,” Theo said. Freddy could wait a few more years to hear the words ‘hit-and-run’ and ‘traumatic aortic dissection’ and ‘your cousins beat up Galil Rabin in the bathroom at the funeral home because they thought it was his fault.’

Freddy tilted his head and twirled a section of his banana peel with a finger. “Accidents are bad. Phil and Caleb were sad, weren’t they? Like I was sad when Mummy and Daddy died.” He frowned, but it didn’t last, much to Theo’s relief. “I’ll hug them, too.” 

“That’s a good idea.” Theo smiled at him. “Go ahead and finish your banana. You need a nap after all that excitement. Sound good?” 

“After you feed the cats,” Bill put in. “I don’t know if they’ll be hungry after all those biscuits, but do it anyway.” 

“Right, right.” Theo got up and filled Rug and Carpet’s dishes with wet food, then gave them clean water, grumbling a “Jesus!” when his back creaked. It was really weird that neither of them had come down when he opened the cans, because they usually had either a sixth sense or a supercharged sense of smell that made them race to the kitchen and wind around his legs when he was getting ready to feed them. “Freddy, promise me you won’t let your cats misbehave if you get ‘em one day. I’m a horrible parent.” 

Freddy stared. “No! You’re a _good_ parent! Auntie Dee says so.” He put his mostly-finished banana down on the table. “Who was being mean –“ 

Theo snatched him up in a hug. This looked like it was shaping up to be a big day for full-body hugs, and for good reason. First a new niece or nephew, and now Freddy defending him? He felt a lump form in his throat. “You’re a good kid, Freddy,” he said into the mess of curls surrounding Freddy’s left ear. “Your mom and dad were lucky to have you, and so are Bill and I.” 

He let Freddy cling to him for a minute or so, then reluctantly put him down. Freddy might fall asleep in his arms, it was true, but that wasn’t a real nap. His mind drifted to how many people had helped in getting Freddy his bed: Dane and Liz, Dinah, Dwight and Noah to watch the kids. Freddy had had a big family in Michel Delving; this one looked like it would be good, too. 

“Freddy, what a lovely compliment,” said Bill, and cleared his throat. He must have had a lump in it, too. What big saps they were turning into. “Do you want to finish your banana?” 

Freddy shook his head. “I’m not hungry anymore, Uncle Bill.” 

“Right.” Bill poked the rest of the fruit down the sink disposal, then threw the peel away. “Let’s go upstairs and we’ll tuck you in for a lie-down. Then maybe we’ll see about a late dinner. Theo, have we got any of that vegetable soup left in the freezer?” 

“Think I saw some last time I was in there,” Theo said. “Light food – that’s a good idea. Okay, Freddy,” he added, “let’s head upstairs.” 

Freddy took his hand on the way up and squeezed his fingers. “Uncle Theo, can I have a bar mitzvah? It was fun.” 

Theo wiggled his eyebrows at Bill. “You liked the party, huh?” 

“No,” Freddy said, “the bar mitzvah. I liked the singing. Except…” He darted his eyes from side to side. “Caleb is very _bad_ at singing,” he whispered. “That’s mean to say. Don’t tell?” 

Theo broke into laughter and ignored Bill’s snort of clear disapproval behind him as they reached the landing. “Freddo, you might be the most honest kid I’ve ever come across,” he said. “You’re right – you shouldn’t say it to them. But yeah, Caleb does kind of suck at singing, doesn’t he?” 

Freddy nodded vigorously. “It sounded like crying,” he said. “You didn’t say if I can have a bar mitzvah, Uncle.” 

“You’re really interested?” Theo asked. This was kind of unexpected. Freddy nodded again. “Wow. Okay, it might be a possibility. You’d have to convert to Judaism, though.” And get circumcised if he wanted to do it in their Conservative-branch synagogue, but he figured that was another conversation to be saved for a later day. “Let’s take you to a few more services and see what you think. Maybe I can get you into Hebrew school if you want.” 

“I want to talk Hebrew like Phil and Caleb,” Freddy said, then stopped in front of Bill and Theo’s bedroom door, wrinkling his entire face up. “It smells _pooey_ yucky in here!” 

Bill stopped short next to Theo, sniffed the air, and coughed hard. “God, yes, it does,” he said. “Theo, did you forget to flush?” 

“Of course not,” said Theo. “Why do you always go to that? You need to pick a different career, Billy.” But Bill and Freddy were right. It stank in the hall, and the stench seemed to be coming from their room. “I’ll get someone to check the vents,” he said, and pushed the door open. 

For a long moment, all three of them stared at the source of the stench, Bill open-mouthed and Freddy wide-eyed. Then Freddy broke the silence. “Rug and Carpet pooed,” he said. 

Damn right they did. Rug looked almost proud of his production, lounging across the end of the bed like he was, and Carpet was sprawled next to the mess on the quilt. “Fuck,” Theo said, his voice coming out strangled. “Carpet rolled in it.” Martha had spent _months_ making that thing for him and the fucking cats had ruined it in probably five minutes. Too late, he put his hand over his mouth, but the damage was done and his ‘fuck’ was out in the open

“Doggies roll in poo, not kitties,” Freddy said, while Bill stalked towards the cats, fists clenched at his sides. “Uncle Bill, don’t hurt the kitties!” 

“I’m _not_ hurting the kitties,” Bill said over his shoulder, and began to pull the quilt into a bundle. Carpet leaped off, clearly the smarter of the two, but Rug didn’t. “I’m trying to save this bloody quilt from what they’ve done, and they didn’t even bother to not put their arses down on it after – Rug! Shoo!” Rug batted a paw at him. 

“You’re doing swear words,” Freddy pointed out. 

Bill growled deep in his throat. “Yes, well, no one ever called me a saint,” he said, obviously about a millimeter away from losing it. “Rug, move!” He snapped his fingers in front of Rug’s face, and as if to say that he was only moving because he was good and ready, Rug slowly jumped off the bed and sauntered off. 

“Bill, I can handle that,” Theo said. “It’s my quilt –“ 

“ – no,” Bill cut him off, “it’s _our_ quilt, and you’re not even good at handling human waste products. What makes you think you’ll be any better with feline?” 

“I’ve owned Rug longer than we’ve been together,” Theo said by way of protest as Bill stripped off his jacket and picked up the bundled quilt under one arm and Carpet, who had relocated to the top of the dresser, under the other. Carpet yowled and scratched Bill’s side, but Bill held him there. “I can give the cat a bath.” 

His answer was another growl, followed by Bill charging towards him with his cargo. Theo pulled Freddy out of the way. “Oh, just go put him to bed, would you?” Bill said grumpily over his shoulder. “I’ve been a nurse longer than you’ve owned Rug. Poo is my livelihood. I’ll set up in the hallway loo. No bloody interruptions!” 

“ _Meeeeer!_ ” 

“Oh, shut up, you.” 

“But I want a story,” said Freddy. 

From inside the bathroom, Bill shouted, “Uncle Theo will tell you one,” and slammed the door shut. Theo heard the lock click, and spared a moment of pity for Carpet, even if this was half his fault. Clearly, they weren’t coming out until everything (and everyone) was clean. 

“Well,” said Theo, looking at Freddy with a raised eyebrow, “I’m not brave enough to bother him now. I can tell you a bedtime story as good as Uncle Bill can, can’t I?” 

“Mm-hm,” said Freddy, though he didn’t sound as though he was being entirely truthful. Theo should have known that a kid who spent nearly five years hearing Beatrix Potter and similar canned English fairy tales wouldn’t take too well to historically accurate battle renditions. Just about the only stories of his that Freddy got truly enthusiastic for were Jewish stories, which he guessed partly explained the desire for a bar mitzvah. “It still smells pooey. Can we go?” 

Theo swooped Freddy up and put him on his shoulders, relishing the giggle he got. “You’re right. Let’s go. Do you need to use the bathroom first?” 

“No, I haven’t got to go.” Freddy pulled two fistfuls of Theo’s hair, and Theo winced. “You’re a horsey.” 

Theo took that as his cue to trot down the hallway to Freddy’s room and neigh, albeit very badly. He was a professor, not an actor, and he would have said so to anyone who made fun of him, but Freddy just giggled at the noise. He laughed even more when Theo took off his little saddle shoes and plopped him down onto his bed. “How’d you like being seven feet tall, Freddo?” Theo asked, and pulled the blankets up to Freddy’s chin. 

“I almost bumped my head!” Freddy said, and patted the top of his head as if to demonstrate. Then he moved towards the spot where his bed met the wall and curled up. “Will you come in with me for my story?” 

“Sure can.” Theo took off his own shoes and scooted into bed beside him. Right away, Freddy cuddled against his side. “What did you want your story to be about? The Maccabees again? I know you like that one.” 

Freddy patted Theo’s chest. “The Maccabees are Hanukkah,” he said. “Uncle Theo, me and Sam and Pip and Merry, we know what we want to do for Halloween.” 

“That took you long enough,” said Theo. “What’d you decide on?” 

“We want to be a bumblebee,” Freddy said, and yawned. “They’ve got yellow hair and I’ve got black hair, so I’m the stripe. We’ve got to find a stinger.” 

“That’s easy. I can come along and stand behind you with a black traffic cone taped to my a – my butt.” He _really_ had to work on watching his language around Freddy or he’d start getting calls from school. It had been bad enough with Phil and Caleb, and they didn’t even live with him. “How’s that sound, bud?” 

Freddy shook his head against Theo’s armpit. “You can’t come with us no more,” he said. “Sam’s daddy said so. The other mummies and daddies didn’t like the clowny guy and the lady last year. We’ve got to do it another place.” 

Ouch. “That doesn’t mean I can’t come,” Theo said, but this wasn’t a war he was particularly inclined to fight. The forces of historical accuracy had nothing on the _combined_ forces of the parents of the Northeast. “Maybe Uncle Bill can come with you and wear the antennae.” 

“With sparkles,” said Freddy, and poked his finger against Theo’s chest in patterns, three pokes on one side followed by three on the other. “Bees have flower dust. I’m excited for my birthday, too.” 

Theo briefly blinked at the sudden change of subject. Eh, Phil and Caleb had been worse. Still were, according to their mother. “Yeah, your fall party,” he said. Freddy’s first-grade friends were coming over for Freddy’s sixth birthday a week from tomorrow, two days after his actual birthday. “Just remember, you can’t carve the pumpkins, just draw on them. We’ll do painting in the yard.” 

“I remember,” Freddy answered. “And cider and maple doughnuts!” He smacked his lips. “It’s like in Michel Delving, ‘cept we didn’t have that kind of doughnuts. Auntie Bandy fries them.” 

“Can’t believe you still remember that,” said Theo. “Good memory, kid.” 

“I remember lots of stuff.” Freddy nudged his head a little farther into Theo’s armpit. “Uncle Theo? When I’m old, will I get lots of hair on my feet like Uncle Bill? He’s got more than you.” 

Theo smiled – he sure did. Not that it was noticeable when he had his socks on, or even when he was barefoot if you weren’t staring at them particularly closely, but Bill had hair on his feet that straddled the line between ‘that’s a little stronger than ‘sparse’’ and ‘what the hell did your mother mate with?’. “Probably,” he said. “Do you _want_ hair on your feet?” 

“I think so,” Freddy said. “I want a story about Uncle Bill and you.” 

“What,” Theo said, “the story of how we met?” Easy. He’d done that one before. Just take out the parts that involved him and Bill fucking like bunnies for three days straight or Bill looking at his bare ass with anything other than professionalism and voila. “Do you want it from the beginning or the middle?” 

“No, not _that_ story,” said Freddy with a long-suffering expression. “A new one. I want to make it up. Uncle Bill is a…” He chewed on his thumb. “A thing with hair on its feet! And it lives somewhere that’s got lots of grass and ales and stuff.” 

Apart from the fact that that sounded like a great way for Noah to spend an afternoon, pre-Dwight, the description was pinging something in Theo’s brain. “I think there’s a word for that,” he said. Something about Bandy or Peggy and some professor they’d run into at university…God, what was it? He pushed himself up on his elbows, took in a deep breath so his voice would carry, and yelled, “ _Bill!_ Hey, Bill, I have a question!” 

“ _What?_ ” came the faint, irate scream from down the hall. “Theodor Derensky, both of the cats have _shat_ on your quilt! I am in no mood!” 

“This’ll be fast!” Theo said. “What’s that word your aunt heard from that professor? The one that means a comfortable person, you know, kind of fat? Michel Delving-type people?” 

There was a very long pause, during which Theo suspected that Bill was pondering whether or not to commit homicide and say he’d done it for the insurance money, before Bill finally said “Can’t it fucking wait? I’m busy!” 

“Please, Bill? Just one word.” Theo made his best puppy-dog face, although only Freddy was there to see it. “Please?” Freddy was practically convulsing with laughter next to him. 

“All right!” Bill called. “Jesus bloody Christ, you’re impossible. _Hobbit_ , I think. Auntie Bandy said that professor called it a hobbit. Will you please leave me alone now?” 

“Are you sure he didn’t mean ‘habit’?” 

Bill’s growl was frightening even a hundred feet and several doors away. “Yes, I’m sure! I’ll talk to you _later_ , Theodor!” Another slam. Theo was pretty sure that this one was just for emphasis. 

Theo snorted and rolled over to face Freddy. If he was going to be spending any amount of pre-nap time in here, he resolved, they needed to buy a bigger bed. Freddy did like to cuddle. “You think Uncle Bill is a hobbit, Freddy?” 

“Yes,” said Freddy, face fixed in a serious expression, and nodded hard. “He’s a hobbit ‘cause he likes to be comfortable. I think hobbits have got hairy feet.” He scrunched up his mouth. “And they’ve got gardens.” 

“Are there a lot of gardens in Michel Delving?” Theo asked. He’d spent most of his time there indoors, meeting with various lawyers and other types of legal experts and Lobelia. That last one hadn’t been at all pleasant, even as these things went. 

Freddy gave a huge yawn. “Yes,” he said. “They’ve got flowers and vegetables. Mummy, she, she said someone used to have flowers on the roof. There was lots of grass.” 

“I think I’ve seen houses like that,” Theo said. There was that one community of bio-something houses in New Mexico that he’d seen online – Earthships or something. And he’d definitely seen accounts of old houses built into the sides of mountains and hills that could have stuff growing on top. “Does this hobbit have flowers on his roof? Maybe he lives inside a hill. Like his house is built into the side.” 

“Oooh, he does!” Freddy’s eyes brightened and he popped upright, then started rubbing Theo’s arm right away. Theo loved being used as a comfort squishie – he really did. “Uncle Theo?” 

“Hmm?” 

“The hobbit has got pointy ears.” Freddy twiddled the tips of his own ears between thumbs and forefingers, then started combing his fingers through Theo’s hair. “Like elves in the stories. He’s little and he’s got pointy ears, but he’s not thin. He’s fat.” 

That, Theo had to admit, was a very welcome change. Most of the ‘fair folk’ stories he’d come across, including most of what Phil and Caleb saw on TV (much to Dinah’s dismay) had all their fairies and elves and even leprechauns stick-thin. Maybe Freddy had a future as an inventive children’s writer in front of him. “Fat with hairy feet, huh? And short? I bet Uncle Bill will think we’re making fun of him.” 

Freddy looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Uncle Bill isn’t short,” he said. “He’s _very_ tall.” 

“Maybe if you’re six,” Theo said, and smiled. Bill was a full nine inches shorter than he was. “Believe me, grown-ups think Uncle Bill is very short. What else does the hobbit like to do?” 

An audible splash sounded from down the hall, and Carpet’s indignant meow almost drowned out a long string of profanity from Bill. Freddy winced; Theo sighed, got up, and leaned out the door. “Bill, you sure everything’s okay in there?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Bill said, significantly calmer – thank God – than all the swear words had indicated. “Carpet’s just gone and splashed me with the contents of the tub. He’ll be all clean soon.” 

“Good,” Theo said. Always good to know Carpet wasn’t abusing his husband. He closed the bedroom door, then got back in bed and cuddled Freddy again. 

“He hasn’t got kitties,” said Freddy in a small voice. “I don’t think hobbits like kitties. Maybe he’s got a doggie.” 

Theo drew Freddy close and kissed the top of his head. “You know Uncle Bill loves Carpet very much, don’t you?” he said. “He just complains a lot. Rug and Carpet love him, too.” 

Rug chose that particular moment to make his appearance by scratching at the bedroom door until it opened enough to let him stick his head into the room. “ _Mrrrrr_ ,” he said, showed his fangs in a hiss, and trotted inside. 

“Uncle Theo,” said Freddy as Rug trotted around the room, sniffing Freddy’s stuffed animals and Theo’s discarded shoes, “why did Rug and Carpet go poo on the quilt? Are they sick? They always go in the litter box.” 

That was a sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, but it was a well-known fact that no one understood a damn thing about cats that cats didn’t want them to know. “Probably because Rug ate those cookies and then he had to go poop,” Theo said, and lay on his back with his arms folded under his head. “And Carpet does everything his brother does.” 

“Oh. Then they were being naughty.” That was a principle that fit well into Freddy’s world, judging by how his furrowed brow cleared. “I don’t think hobbits have kitties because they’re too naughty,” Freddy added. “Doggies are as big as hobbits, but they’re very good and they do their poos outside.” 

“That’s a good point,” Theo said. “What else do hobbits do?” 

Freddy closed his eyes and scrunched up his face in thought. “They eat lots of food,” he said after a pause. “Five… _seven_ times a day!” His blue eyes lit up. “And it’s called breakfast, and, uh…second breakfast, and…and elevensies, and lunch, and tea, and dinner, and…uh…” He held up both hands and counted off on his fingers, and his face fell. “Uncle, I don’t know what the last one is called.” 

“How about ‘supper’?” Theo suggested. “No one says that anymore now. It could be sort of an old-timey name.” 

“Okay,” said Freddy with a nod, and jerked when Rug suddenly jumped up on the bed and settled between them. “Rug! You surprised me. Don’t do that.” He sat up until he was almost nose-to-nose with the cat (who was _very_ naughty and would probably need to be treatless for a few days because of what he’d done) and stuck out his lower lip. “You’re a bad kitty. You’ve got to do that in the litter box.” 

Rug licked his nose. “ _Mrr_.” 

Freddy pulled back and rubbed his nose on his sleeve. “Not my face!” 

Theo chortled. That was definitely a Dwight-ism, just like Freddy’s scowl had started to incorporate more and more Derensky into its structure with every passing month. “So does this hobbit just sit around all day and eat stuff?” 

“No,” Freddy said, “he works in the garden and goes on adventures.” 

“That’s kind of an unexpected combination.” Theo held out his hand and Rug sniffed it. “Are there other hobbits who live with him?” 

Freddy considered that one for a minute, and this time, he didn’t even wince when the sound of another splash came down the hall. “No,” he said, “he’s a _bachelor_. Auntie Bandy said Uncle Bill was a bachelor ‘til you met him. Were you a bachelor, too?” From the way he said it, it was obvious that the kid had no idea what that word meant. 

“Yeah, sure,” Theo told him. You didn’t have to be a virgin to be a bachelor, right? Freddy could get that story later, and by later, he meant in twenty years. “Poor hobbit, living in his hill all by himself. Does he have family who live in other hills?” This was shaping up to be a cute little background, if he did say so himself. Little pointy-eared creatures who lived in homes dug into the sides of hills in what he imagined to be a rolling green land suited Bill’s family just fine. “Maybe a mom and dad?” 

“No, he hasn’t got a mummy and daddy,” said Freddy. “He’s got cousins.” He held up his fingers again and counted them off with every sing-songed name. “Cousin Lobelia, Cousin Otho, Cousin Lotho, Cousin Ads, Cousin Flim-Flam, Auntie Bandy, Auntie Peggy, Uncle Longo, Uncle Togo, Auntie Rosa –“ 

A snort escaped Theo, and Freddy gave him a dirty look at the interruption. “Sorry, Freddy,” Theo said. “I think I was expecting different names. Does this hobbit have a name?” 

Freddy sat straight up and said proudly, as if he’d come up with the name out of his own head instead of picking it up from all those relatives, “Bilbo Baggins!” 

“Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit,” Theo echoed. It did suit him. Bill would probably go into hysterics when he told him that Freddy had made the entire village of Michel Delving into a bunch of short people who ate seven times a day. Come to think of it, that wasn’t inaccurate. He had at least six inches on every one of Bill’s relatives, even the guys. “And where does Bilbo Baggins live?” 

Rug made a disgruntled sound when Freddy began to pet the top of his head. “Bag…Bag…” Freddy seemed to be going for the theme naming here, never a bad idea in a fantasy setting. Theo had read enough high and low fantasy to know. “Bag _End!_ ” Freddy finally blurted out, and repeated it triumphantly. “Bag End.” 

Theo grabbed onto his nose so he wouldn’t snort again and ruin Freddy’s evening. Someone had to have been saying ‘bell-end’ around Freddy for him to come up with that. Out of the mouths of babes, and into the ears of Dinah, next time he saw her. 

“Uncle?” Freddy poked his side. “Don’t you like Bag End?” 

“I _definitely_ like it,” said Theo, “but you’ve only talked about Uncle Bill. You said you wanted a story about me and Uncle Bill. Does he meet me on one of his adventures?” 

“You do!” Freddy said. “You don’t live with the hobbits because you’re not a hobbit.” 

That was a good point, but Theo thought it would get clunky to just keep saying ‘with the hobbits’ or ‘where the hobbits live.’ “Does the place they live have a name?” he asked. “Not Bag End, I mean the land. What about Oxfordshire?” 

“ _No_ ,” said Freddy decisively, “just the Shire. That’s where the hobbits live, the Shire. All the old people call it that in Michel Delving.” 

“The hobbits live in the Shire,” said Theo. “That sounds good.” The world was already taking shape in his mind: a green place with mild seasons, much milder than that first winter he’d come to visit, and lots of fruit trees and maybe even an open-air market in a town square. He closed his eyes and the tiny people who lived there suddenly came to life. “So where are we starting?” 

“No, Uncle Theo, we’ve got to talk about you.” Theo opened his eyes at a hiss from Rug and found Freddy pulling the cat onto his lap. Rug tolerated it well enough, but scrambled half off Freddy’s lap and partway into Theo’s when Freddy put him down, then started kneading with claws. “Uncle Theo!” Freddy repeated. “You’re not a hobbit. You’re a…a…” His finger went back into his mouth. “A dwarf!” 

It had to be the beard. It was always either the hair or the beard. “A dwarf like the little men who live underground?” Theo asked. “How is that different than a hobbit? I mean, apart from the beards. Dwarves have to have beards, don’t they?” 

Freddy wiggled closer and stroked Theo’s beard with both sticky palms (they should have had him wash his hands after eating that banana), then began to play with Theo’s hair again. “Dwarves are taller,” he said. “They’re little, but hobbits are littler. And they…um…they make pretty things with jewels like Mrs. Sima.” After a moment, he added, “And they wear helmets with horns, like Vikings.” 

“ _Vikings?_ ” Theo repeated, teasing Freddy with his tone. Freddy rolled his eyes. Wow, a year and the kid was already used to his humor. “Are there lots of dwarves to make the hobbits confused at Hillel?” 

Freddy pulled out a few sections of his hair and began to braid them. “No,” he said, “there aren’t lots of dwarves, ‘cause they’re Jewish. There aren’t lots of Jewish people. The dwarves wear _kippah_ s and they make good food.” 

“Are they fat?” Theo asked quickly, and hoped that his voice didn’t shake. So Freddy had picked up on the relative lack of Jews in the world, but not on the multiple genocides that were the cause. He’d definitely have to sit Freddy down and have a long, serious talk about the Holocaust sooner than he expected, maybe in the next year or so. 

“Some dwarves are fat like Benny,” Freddy answered. “Not all of them. There are skinny dwarves like Cousin Phil. Ooh!” His voice scaled up with excitement. “They put braids in their hair! They’ve all got long hair. They don’t _ever_ cut it.” He momentarily stopped braiding and peered into Theo’s face. “And they’ve got big noses.” 

Theo reached out and tweaked Freddy’s nose. Giggling, Freddy flailed at him. “You know, not all Jewish people have big noses, either,” he said. “Caleb doesn’t. He looks like his dad.” 

“Oh.” 

“It’s okay.” Theo gave him a hug, which ended up hurting more than he’d expected, since Freddy still had his hands in his hair. “You know, I read about dwarves when I was in college. There’s a big book called the Eddas that has stories about dwarves in them. Want to know about them?” The Eddas and all the legends from Germany had been some of his favorite European legends when he was a student. Again, probably because of the beards. 

Freddy abruptly pulled his hands out of Theo’s hair and got into his lap, displacing Rug, who arched his back and stalked to the end of the bed. “Yes, tell me!” 

Theo put his arms around him. “They make things,” he said. “Weapons and buildings and jewelry. Some people think they help keep things safe.” Flames went up in his mind, bright orange and sparking, but this was no image of alarm: it was the story coming to life. Years of writing had taught him that. No, this was a forge, bigger and more elaborate than his forge in the Village, and the hands of the dwarves who pulled their metal pieces out of the fire were fast and sure. If he closed his eyes, for just a second, he could smell the smelting ore. 

“Do they make pretty things?” Freddy asked. 

Theo shook his head as the dreamscape abruptly disappeared. It was disconcerting, like when you stepped off an escalator to find that you had to start walking again. “Yeah,” he said. “Some people think they’re ugly, but they’re not. They look all kinds of different ways.” 

“I think they’re pretty,” Freddy declared. “Are there lady dwarves or just men? There are lots of men at Hillel.” 

“Oh, there are lady dwarves,” Theo said. That was a good question, though. Huh, with all the racist shit Jewish women got about being hairy, he could work that into a story somewhere. There was really no way to credit Freddy for it and keep his anonymity, but a thorough request for permission and ice cream as a royalty payment would probably work great. “They have beards, too. And the babies have beards. Everyone has beards!” 

Freddy pouted at him. “You’re being silly.” 

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I can stop if you want. Do you want to start the story?” 

“No, we haven’t finished everything yet!” 

“God, really?” Theo said. “Freddy, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you might end up being a writer someday. You have the imagination for it.” Freddy hid his face in Theo’s side. “Hey, what do you have to be embarrassed about? I was trying to give you a compliment.” 

Freddy blew a raspberry against Theo’s shirt. “Not embarrassed,” he said. “’S’comfortable.” He kicked his comforter a few times with the balls of his feet, rumpling it up. Rug bared his teeth, but didn’t move. “The dwarves live in a big mountain. It’s cold in there.” 

“How am I going to meet Uncle Bill if I live in a mountain and he lives in a hill?” Theo asked. That rhyme sounded like part of a song. He’d have to tell Bill that he was a poet and he didn’t know it (but his feet knew it, because they were Longfellows, as Omer was fond of quoting when he’d hit the sauce). 

“Hmm,” said Freddy, and stroked his chin like Boaz did. “The dwarves don’t live in the mountain anymore,” he said, and perked up on the next sentence, words falling over each other, “’cause, ‘cause there’s a big dragon! He’s red. He took their mountain and he’s sitting on the gold.” 

Theo shot a glance at Rug, who was on top of the rumpled comforter and, with his tail curled around his nose, could have been a dragon himself. All he needed was to breathe fire, and he had that covered on the back end. “Is the dragon’s name Rug?” 

“Rug isn’t _red_ , Uncle,” said Freddy with a sigh. “You’ve got to listen.” 

“Okay,” said Theo, amused, “so not Rug. What’s he called? Fire Alarm?” 

There was that look again like he’d grown a second head. “No,” Freddy said, and then his face lit up with unmistakable pride. “The dragon’s name is Smaug! Smaug the Terrible!” 

“Jesus,” Theo choked out – it was the only word he could push through his lips before he fell off the bed laughing and narrowly avoided taking Freddy with him. Face pressed into the floor, covers tangled around his legs and waist, he helplessly hiccupped in and out as the laughter wheezed from him. Smaug the fucking Terrible, and he was a damn dragon to boot. Whatever they were feeding Freddy at school, he wanted some. 

“Uncle Theo?” Freddy’s eyes peered into his. Somehow, it seemed he’d rolled onto his back, and he had no stinking idea how much time had passed. And his chest was _still_ spasming with the occasional laugh. “Are you okay? You fell.” 

Theo rolled back over and got up on his hands and knees, then climbed back onto the bed. His back hurt. “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry to worry you. God, _Smaug the Terrible_.” He snorted and leaned his head into one of the pillows; his face hurt from all the laughing. “I can’t believe you remember Smaug.” 

Freddy sat cross-legged next to Rug and started to pet him. Theo couldn’t believe Rug hadn’t even gotten off the bed to see if he was okay; that was a cat for you. It was all his fault for not getting a dog, and for being such a loving sap for this particular ball of fur. “I don’t,” he said. “Mummy did. She talked about him sometimes. He was a bad man and he scared you.” 

“Darn right,” Theo said. “I haven’t heard from him in a while and I really hope it stays that way.” Fucking Iggy. The sooner he stopped showing up in Theo’s dreams, the better. 

“The dragon’s got a red, scaly cock,” said Freddy.

The laughing fit that Freddy elicited this time was shorter, probably because Theo’s body shut it down out of the pure need to keep breathing. Theo planted his face in the pillow and pounded his fists against the mattress, shaking with laughter until he was finally composed enough to resurface. “Okay, you _really_ can’t say that around other people,” he gasped. “Please tone it down a little. I don’t think my heart can take more of this.” 

Freddy flopped down on his belly, his face crestfallen. “Oh. Sorry I hurt you, Uncle.” 

“It’s okay.” Theo reached out with a shaky hand and touched Freddy’s shoulder. “No harm done.” Unless ‘busting a gut’ was literal. “So, uh, Smaug. Good name for a bad dragon. Why did he take the dwarves’ mountain?” 

“Dunno,” said Freddy with a shrug. “He wanted to. They’ve got lots of gold and he wanted it.” 

“Well, that sucks for the dwarves.” Theo didn’t know why the hell he was feeling a pang in his heart for fictional characters that he hadn’t even plotted out yet, but there was something so damn sad about these dwarves having their mountain taken away. _Three guesses why I’m broken up about it and the first two don’t count_ , he thought. It could get really terrible, having all these Jewish tragedies in recent memory. “Do they ever get their mountain back?” 

Freddy pursed his lips. “Mmmm…yes,” he said. “You’re the king of the dwarves, Uncle Theo. You and some other people get the mountain back. The dragon doesn’t get to have it anymore.” 

“Does he at least die so we don’t have to keep chasing him out?” Theo asked. 

“Yes!” Freddy answered. “He’s big and scaly. Someone’s got to shoot him with an arrow where he’s got soft parts. And then they’ve…they’ve, they’ve got lots of dragon meat!” He broke into the smile of a child who loves a good gross-out. “They eat it and it’s yucky and they eat it anyway.” 

Dragon meat would probably be gamey and tough, but Theo knew he’d try it if presented with it. After all, it would be from a real live (well, dead) dragon, and how many people could say they’d had that opportunity? “Waste not, want not,” he said. “Why am I the king of the dwarves, Freddo? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – just why?” 

Freddy put both of his arms around Theo’s side and stomach, or tried to. It ended up with one of his skinny arms trapped under Theo’s back, which created an uncomfortable lump, but Theo wasn’t about to move. Nephew cuddles were always worth the pain. “You weren’t always,” Freddy said. “Your grandpa was king first. Then he died. Your daddy and mummy didn’t get to be king and queen either, ‘cause your daddy died.” 

Theo’s stomach dropped into his feet. “Who told you about my family?” Oh, God, that came out so much harsher than he expected. “About…my dad and grandfather?” How much had Freddy learned? He couldn’t have heard all the details (Grandfather Theodor beaten until he lay on the ground, bleeding out, Papa screaming in the night and letting everything spill when the Alzheimer’s took over, Mama’s heart failure, all the nightmares, _Forrest_ ). He wouldn’t be nearly as neutral about it if he had. 

“Auntie Dee,” said Freddy. He stared up at Theo, eyes huge. “She said your grandpa died in _Pole_ -land –“ he pronounced the word oh-so-carefully “ – and your daddy had a bad disease. It made him forget things, so he died.” 

Theo’s heart suddenly went back to beating at a normal pace. “Oh, okay,” he said. “Yeah. Those were sad things that happened. I’ll tell you more about them when you get a little older.” He ran his fingers through the curliest pieces of hair on the top of Freddy’s head, which made him look kind of like one of those fluffy-headed chickens when he hadn’t had a haircut for a while. “Is that how I meet Uncle Bill? Does he help us kill the dragon?” 

“Hobbits can’t kill a dragon,” Freddy said. “That’s silly. They’re too little.” He nodded. “Uncle Theo? You won’t die, right?” He squeezed Theo hard, hiding his face in his armpit. “I don’t want you to leave like my daddy and your daddy.” 

Theo lifted him into his lap and hugged him hard. A lump grew in his throat, and suddenly, it was very hard to see through the blurriness in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, kiddo,” he said. “Never leaving you.” Was this Freddy’s way of saying he needed attention? He was such a horrible uncle. His research could wait – this little boy was more important. “Never ever. I love you. Do you believe me?” 

“Yes,” said Freddy into Theo’s neck, and he did sound reassured. “You always tell the truth, Uncle.” He pressed a loud, smacking kiss into Theo’s neckbeard stubble and withdrew his face. “That’s why you’re the dwarf king. You’re very strong and you’re a good king. They call you Oak Shield.” 

“Hmm,” said Theo, and tickled the crease of Freddy’s neck. Freddy squeaked. “That’s a little clunky. How about Oakenshield? King Oakenshield of the dwarves.” That sounded impressive, if he did say so himself. “And I lead my people on a journey to reclaim our mountain from the dragon. Bilbo the hobbit comes with us.” Wait…plot hole. “How does he find out about us if we live in different places?” 

“The gray man,” Freddy replied. “He’s very sneaky. He wants you and Uncle Bill to be in love. That’s why he tells Uncle Bill about the adventure. Uncle Bill goes with you and you have to let him ride your pony.” 

Riding his _pony_ , dear fucking God. Theo suppressed an automatic ‘is that what the kids are calling it these days?’ and wiggled his feet for Rug instead. Rug, as expected, went for the moving lumps under the covers with teeth and claws. “Aunt Dee really has to stop telling you stuff that’s for grown-ups.” 

“But she didn’t,” Freddy said. “Uncle Bill said so at your wedding. He said the gray man was ‘the lunatic who set us up.’” He straightened up in bed for that last quote, puffed out his chest, and lowered his voice. It did sound eerily like Bill. 

Theo snorted. “Someone has a knack for impressions,” he said, and would have said more about Freddy’s similar knack for world-building but for the sudden knock on the door. “Hey, come in.” 

Bill opened the door and stood in the doorway, disheveled, with scratches all over his face and down his arms below his rolled-up sleeves. “I rescued the quilt,” he said. “It will definitely have a stain, but it’s as clean as I can get it. We ought to send it to Martha for more cleaning.” 

“At least you saved it!” said Theo. “Who cares about a stain? You brought our quilt back from the dead. How’s Carpet?” 

“Clean,” Bill sighed. “Reluctantly. I had to use the baby shampoo on him _and_ the quilt. He savaged me quite a bit.” 

“Bad, bad Carpet,” Freddy said with a frown. “Why did he scratch you if you got him clean?” 

Bill blew out his breath. “Because cats can be terrible,” he said, “and they don’t like water. Theo, I’m going to go take a shower in _our_ loo. The quilt’s drying over the shower rail in the other one, so you’ll want to avoid it for a while.” 

“Thanks, good to know. You want to have something to eat, maybe?” 

“I’d rather have a rest,” Bill said. “I’ll meet you in our room?” 

Theo looked at Freddy. “Sure,” he said. “Freddo and I have been plotting out a story. We need to actually tell it before I can come in.” 

“It’s about a dwarf and a hobbit and a dragon,” said Freddy, and yawned. “It’s you and Uncle Theo.” 

“A – oh, that’s what you were shouting about,” said Bill. He shook his head. “Theo, next time you’ve got a question for me about some obscure linguistic thing, you wait until I’m done cleaning the cat poo off the quilt.” 

If God had any sense of fairness at all, it would never happen again, but Theo refrained from saying that. Pedantry would only make Bill mad at this point. “Thanks again,” he said instead. “Have I told you I love you lately?” 

“Yes, but I can always hear it again.” Bill wiped his forehead with his forearm. “Right. Shower time. I’ll see you whenever you’re finished.” 

“Okay.” Theo made a kissing noise at Bill, who echoed it and disappeared, and squeezed Freddy. “Anything else you want to talk about before we start telling the story for real? We have our heroes and our quest, and the dragon’s sitting on top of a bunch of gold, and the gray man’s all ready to start wreaking havoc.” Grindal Grey really was a weirdo, but he seemed to be helpful for Omer’s PTSD and he was the reason Bill was his husband, so Theo was inclined to cut him a break. “Is this a standard ‘once upon a time’ thing?” 

Freddy yawned yet again and flopped back onto the pillow. “I’m really tired, Uncle,” he said. “Can we do the story another time? Please?” 

Slowly, so he wouldn’t jostle Freddy, Theo disengaged and tucked Freddy in tightly. “Sure,” he said when he was finished. “We can even do it when you go to bed for real. You enjoy making up our fun story?” 

Freddy nodded. “Uh-huh. I wanna talk more about the dwarves and the hobbit. The hobbit’s got a fat tummy.” 

“You already said that,” Theo pointed out. 

“I know. I’m saying it again. I wanna talk about the kinds of things he likes to eat.” Freddy rolled over and burrowed into the pillow, curling the blankets around his body. “He makes cakes and pies. And there’s roasts for dinner. He’s got to have his vegetables, too.” 

“So he’ll grow up big and strong,” said Theo, chuckling, but Freddy seemed too tired to get the joke. “You’re a good writer, Freddo.” 

“Mm.” Freddy pushed his face farther into the pillow. “Thanks lots. There’s elves and fairies, too.” 

Theo kissed his head. “We’ll talk about that another time.” He stood up and went to turn out the light, then left the door open just a crack. “Have a good nap, kid,” he said from the hallway as Rug came through the opening he’d left and rubbed against his legs. “Hi, fuzzball.” 

The cat elected to follow him to the master bedroom, where Bill, ever the undisputed king of showering so fast before work that it would make your head spin, was already out of the shower and making up the bed with the comforter. “Freddy didn’t want his story, then?” he asked. 

“No, he wanted the story – he just got tired,” Theo said. “I’ll probably end up telling it when he goes to bed tonight.” He sniffed at the air; Bill had gotten rid of the stink, it seemed, with a liberal application of Febreze. It almost burned his nose, but that was better than what the room had smelled like earlier. “Want help?” 

“Please. Can you help me tuck in the covers?” 

“Yeah,” said Theo, and tucked in the sheets and comforter across the bed from where Bill was doing the same thing. Then he made a hospital corner, something that Mama had taught him early on. Though she never told him so, he suspected she’d learned in the refugee camp. “Freddy’s really good at coming up with stories.” 

Bill bent over and did the other corner. “Yes, about that! What was your sudden interest in that word? I heard Freddy say I’m meant to slay a dragon or something?” He looked up at Theo, his eyes questioning. “I have to say, I’m a bit flattered.” 

“No, I’m the one who’s slaying the dragon,” Theo said, “not to rain on your parade. Or my people are slaying it, at least. He came up with some backstory about a band of dwarves who want to go retake the mountain they live in from a dragon. He stole it because he wanted their gold.” This story wanted to be told, _needed_ to be told, he realized. The other stories he’d told Freddy had always left his head almost as soon as he tucked Freddy in and gave him his good-night kiss, but not this one. “I don’t know, I think that might have to be a book.” 

“Hmm, really?” Bill finished tucking in his side, fluffed the pillows, and collapsed face-first onto the bed. “I didn’t know you had any aspirations to write children’s books. Not that I’m casting aspersions. I’m just surprised.” 

“That’s the thing,” said Theo, “I don’t know if it’d be a _children’s_ book, per se. I think it might be kind of an all-ages book.” He joined Bill on the bed and rubbed his well-padded back from his neck down to the small. Bill purred and shifted in place. “Actually, here’s an idea. Why don’t you write it with me?” 

Bill took his face out of the pillow. “Are you serious?” 

“As a heart attack,” Theo told him. “Why not? Freddy talked about making a hobbit village like Michel Delving, and no one around here knows Michel Delving better than you. You could even get your own pen name.” Mother’s maiden name, maybe. He mulled it over for a moment and added, “W.B. Took.” 

Bill shook his head. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t possibly have time to write a book.” 

“You wouldn’t be writing it on your own,” Theo said. “I’d probably do most of the actual writing. You could maybe come up with the stuff for the hobbits and I’d do the dwarves. And the dragon.” He smiled. “Freddy suggested calling the dragon Smaug the Terrible. Can you believe he remembers that?” 

“He did _not_.” 

“Yeah, and he said he has a red, scaly cock, too.” 

Bill put his face back down and groaned. “Is our six-year-old nephew suggesting you write a porno?” 

“No, I don’t think he knew what he was talking about,” Theo said. “Look, if we wrote this, it wouldn’t have to be banged out fast or anything. Octavia’s probably willing to let me take a sabbatical or whatever at this point. I could do my research, too.” 

“Well, I have to say, it’s good to see you taking some interest in something other than the damn research,” Bill said. “You’ve been so preoccupied lately. I’ve been getting worried.” 

“I have?” He didn’t think he had, but was he really the best objective judge of what he was doing? The period of Middle Eastern history he was researching wasn’t the most well-known of fields, and finding records from the time period of the First Egyptian Dynasty was proving next to impossible. “Jeez. I didn’t know you were worried.” 

Bill shuffled closer on his belly and threw an arm across Theo’s abdomen. “I don’t think it helps that I don’t know exactly what you’re trying to get at,” he admitted. “You’re trying to disprove the Bible, is it?” 

“Not…not exactly,” said Theo. “Sort of. There’s a story behind it – I swear I’m not just pulling stuff out of my ass.” 

Horror stories hadn’t been the only tales to come out of Papa’s mouth when the Alzheimer’s took hold of his brain. He’d talked about his own father, Theodor, and life in Prague with him, his mother, and two younger brothers. “My papa should have saved the world,” he said one day from his bed. He’d looked so tiny – always short from the camps, he’d lost the weight that made him stocky and squat by then. “Feivel, you should know this.” 

“I’m Theodor,” Theo had said. “Papa, I’m Theo. Don’t you remember?” 

Tuvia grasped Theo’s hand with his own, frail and bony, spotted with age. “My papa knew things,” he said. “Azzo killed the greatest mind of his generation. May his name be cursed forever!” He grimaced and spat over the side of the bed. “The Bible? It wasn’t so. Scholars should know this and Papa was a scholar. There was no Exodus.” 

“Really?” He was only nineteen, just a kid, a stupid kid who should’ve had more time. Papa should have had more time. 

“No evidence!” Tuvia cried. “None!” And he flailed then, and one of his flying hands hit Theo in the face. Mama, so haggard, came in to soothe him, and that was the last coherent thing Theo heard from his father for hours. 

“Theo?” Bill said. “Theo, you’re wandering.” 

Theo opened his eyes and found Bill staring into his face. Those weren’t Papa’s blue eyes, paler than his; they were hazel, and they were worried. “Jesus F. Lipschitz,” he said. “Sorry. I was thinking about what Papa told me.” 

“Tell me,” Bill said, and drew him close. 

For some reason, the touch didn’t comfort him. Theo struggled up and sat back against the headboard. “There wasn’t an Exodus,” he said. “There were some rabbis who thought my grandfather was completely off his rocker for saying so, but he wasn’t crazy. He was ahead of his time.” He slowly shook his head. “No evidence. Papa was right – there’s no evidence.” 

Bill touched Theo’s stomach like he was grounding him, warm flesh breaking through cold ideas. Theo’s head cleared, just for a second. “Tell me more.” 

“The Egyptians would have written about it,” said Theo. “There were Jews in some of their paintings, but no slaves. When they _had_ slaves, they talked about them and noted them and everything. And there wasn’t time.” Just like there wasn’t time for him to write when he was at Harvard, or writing his thesis, or writing the first of too many fucking T.D. Darrens books. The world had to know, or his grandfather’s death would have been in vain, and the thought had kept him up for too many nights in his life. “You know what I think?” 

“Mm?” 

“It’s an allegory. They were talking about the mass exodus of the slave class from the major cities in Sumer. The timeline matches up, right? There were pharaohs in Egypt at the time when there were the biggest uprisings in Mesopotamia. Abraham could’ve met them, and that could’ve been the Joseph legend and the Moses legend and everything.” His words came faster and faster, and for some reason, the image of a pair of chattering wind-up teeth popped into his brain. “Doesn’t that make so much more sense?” 

Bill took him firmly by the shoulders. “Theo. Yes, it does make more sense. Just…you’ve got a lifetime to research this, all right? You forge and you run around after Freddy all the time.” 

“And I swim,” said Theo. He could feel himself starting to come back to himself, out of Mesopotamia and into his very much modern bedroom. “Sometimes.” Or had he been in Buchenwald along with Papa, reliving his terrified secondhand memories of watching the first Theodor die? He didn’t know, and now his head was spinning. 

“Yes, you see? You’ve got every chance of living a statistically longer-than-average life. That means you’ve got decades and decades to finish your research and take the world by storm.” Bill slapped both of his shoulders, like his palms were epaulets or something. It made Theo smile. “There we are, that seems to have you feeling better.” 

Theo gave him a hug. “Thanks, Bill.” 

Bill crossed his arms, looking altogether satisfied. “Now what would you say to a cuddle?” 

“Can’t.” Theo’s feet hit the floor, followed – with a _thud_ \- by the rest of him. “Freddy’s story is stuck in my brain. I gotta write it.” His eyes flicked to his chair, which had clothes all over it but was otherwise bare. “Where’s my laptop?” 

“Come on, Theo,” said Bill as Theo got down on his knees, “you can’t possibly be thinking of writing now. We’ve had an ordeal.” 

Theo pulled the laptop out from its spot partway under the bed (damn cats probably had something to do with it) and grabbed the lap desk to turn it on in bed. “I gotta look up the Prose Eddas,” he said. “I did a huge paper on them back in college. There’s some great Norse mythology in there about dwarves and elves and quests and stuff like that. It’d be great for the story.” And no copyright issues to worry about, as far as he knew, though it would probably be safest to look that up. “I think they even put in some names I can grab.” 

Bill sighed very loudly and extremely pointedly. “Absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “We finally have some time alone after the cats nearly _ruin_ your precious handmade quilt and you want to spend it writing about dwarves and elves.” 

“And hobbits,” Theo reminded him. “Would you happen to know the contact info for that linguist? I’d love to talk to him about it.” He resumed his seat beside Bill and booted up the computer. 

“He’s dead, as far as I know,” said Bill. “Probably has been for decades – he was years and years older than Bandy when she met him. I think she said he became rather famous in his field for research, interpretation of languages, that sort of thing.” 

“Well, good for him,” Theo said. It really was an accomplishment. He’d spent plenty of time in the humanities, and that was long enough to know that humanities jobs (even in academia) were about as plentiful as teenagers with good sense. 

Bill reached over and spread his hand out across Theo’s keyboard. “Come on, no research right now. Any kind of research. You’ll be up all night and end up a pill to deal with tomorrow morning.” 

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” said Theo. “I’ll deal. Please? This isn’t my Middle East research – it’s Germanic fantasy. Be a pal.” 

“I’d rather be your husband,” Bill muttered, but he took his hand away. “If you start whining tomorrow morning about how you’d rather stay in bed, five more minutes, five more minutes, I’m not showing you any sympathy. And for good measure, if it happens, I hope you step on a Lego.” 

Theo rolled his eyes. “That would require Freddy leaving them out and you know he doesn’t do that.” They rarely had to remind Freddy to pick up his toys. In fact, sometimes Theo wished he were a little _less_ well-behaved; maybe then, they wouldn’t have to worry about him as much. 

Rug stuck his head in the doorway, peered around, and decided that he would deign to come in after a few moments of supercilious pondering. “No, you don’t,” said Bill, but didn’t make a move to stop him as Rug jumped up onto the bed. “This is all your fault. Bad cat, eating biscuits and shitting on the quilt.” 

“Oh, he knows what he did,” said Theo, clicking on a link. “He just doesn’t care.” Okay, the Eddas were free online. If only he hadn’t done that book clean-out a few years ago; he might still have some resources on Norse literature if he had, instead of a million books on Middle Eastern history and whatever he needed for his book of the moment. It sucked to have to switch windows when he was on a writing streak to look something up; he vastly preferred to have an actual copy of a book next to him. He could always buy one if it came to that. 

Rug lifted a leg and began to vigorously scratch his ear with his hind foot. “I’m still very angry at you, you know,” Bill told him, shaking his finger. “I would remove you bodily from this room, but I think that would end with me sleeping on the couch.” 

“It definitely would,” Theo said. “Rug is our cat son. You can’t kick out a cat son.” 

“If he’s our cat son, then that means we can ground him,” Bill replied. “Rug, you’re grounded. No treats for two weeks.” 

Rug gave Bill a look and kneaded the comforter for a second, then turned over onto his side. “Grounding him would probably mean making him go outside,” Theo said. “Rug, no TV for a week, but you can’t go outside because I still need to get you your heartworm medicine for this year.” 

“I can get that at the vet,” Bill said. “You’ve got a full schedule this week, right? I haven’t. I’ll take him to the groomer, too – he’s well overdue.” 

Theo glanced at Rug. “I can get behind that,” he said. Except for his gray coloring, Rug was beginning to look like a Wookiee. Maybe that made him an elderly Wookiee…but they hadn’t been gray in the Christmas special with all of Chewbacca’s family members. Still, who counted that ocular abortion as canon? No one online, that was who. 

Bill leaned forward and scratched Rug between the ears. “I suppose you’re forgiven,” he said, “on the condition that – all right, no, I can’t pretend I forgive you. I don’t.” He looked pleadingly at Theo. “I think he’ll have to be conditionally _your_ cat son until I trust he won’t poo outside the litter box anymore.” 

“Fair,” Theo said. “Rug, I’m making you conditionally only my cat son for a while. Just the two of us again except for Freddy, huh?” He opened Amazon and typed in ‘dwarf book,’ since it never hurt to do research. The result was a page full of children’s books, but that was a good start. “Bill, you mind if I get some books on dwarves?” 

“We’re not talking about the type with achondroplasia, I assume?” said Bill dryly. “Yes, that’s fine, just don’t leave them where I can trip over them.” He shook his head. “How do you suppose those Germans ever came up with dwarf myths?” 

“Probably from Jews,” Theo said. “Think about it. Short guys with huge beards and big noses? Sounds like Gad right there, and my dad after he stopped shaving.” Papa had grown the beard after Alzheimer’s made him start forgetting to shave, but that was neither here nor there, and best kept in his own head. He’d scared Bill enough for tonight. 

Bill frowned, but he was nodding his head. “Maybe,” he said. “Aren’t the legends a bit older than that? Around the time of the Neolithic or something.” 

“I guess we’ll find out.” Theo finished his order and pushed the computer away. “Bill,” he said, “please write this book with me. I know you’ll be a fantastic writer.” 

Bill patted his arm. “How would you even know?” 

Theo smirked at him. “Blame your aunts. They sent me that poetry you wrote in college.” 

Bill covered his face with both hands and groaned. “Oh, shite, I _knew_ I should have checked that manila envelope. Is that why you were giggling so much in your study?” 

“Yes, it is,” said Theo, “but that was purely because of the subject matter. You’re seriously talented, Bill. That’s why I know you’d be a really good co-writer. W.B. Took and T.D. Darrens – imagine it!” He put his arm around Bill’s shoulders. “Two best-selling writers if this book takes off, and we’ll split the royalties fifty-fifty. We can take all the time we need to do it.” 

Bill nodded against Theo’s shoulder. “I’ll seriously think about it. I’ve got to admit, it _does_ sound like fun. What would you think of calling this book, anyway?” 

“Hadn’t thought about it,” Theo said. “I don’t know. The Hobbit? Nice and simple. Kids might be more interested if it didn’t have some pretentious name.” He kissed Bill’s ear, which turned pink. “Freddy wanted it to be about us. Did I tell you that? Bilbo Baggins and the dwarf king he falls in love with.” 

Bill shook his head hard and sliced his hand through the air. “I’m drawing the line at Bilbo Baggins,” he said. “It’s fine in Michel Delving, but it’ll be terribly embarrassing here.” 

“So no one has to know it’s you,” Theo said. “We can change the name. Boggins or something. The name doesn’t matter, anyway.” It might be a better bet to change it to something that the Michel Delving crowd wouldn’t recognize. Bill was right. “What matters is the story of the hobbit and the dwarf king who loves him.” 

“And tone _that_ down for the parents’ organization or whatever they’re called,” Bill said, “the ones who keep protesting homosexuality in media. Can’t have them sniffing around your tail.” 

They weren’t into sniffing around anyone’s tail if Theo was analyzing their prudishness correctly. Even if they weren’t willing to let him and Bill mess around behind closed doors, though, he was nice enough to do the same for them and not pry. “Yeah,” he said. “Do you mind if I start writing now? I have this great opening line in mind.” 

Bill’s face went back into the pillow yet again. “Can we _please_ just cuddle?” 

“Only for a few minutes,” Theo promised. “I’ll blow you after.” 

“Fine.” Bill’s tone didn’t change one bit, but he shifted against the bed, so it definitely looked like he was okay with the idea. 

Theo wiggled his eyebrows at Bill’s back, opened up Word, and flexed his fingers. Then he set them down on the keyboard and began to type. _In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit_ …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is where we see the major area of divergence from our universe: for obvious reasons, Tolkien never had the idea for the Middle Earth universe. Instead, he became a famous linguist, was lauded for his imagination and mastery of structure, and died a well-respected and well-loved man among the people he loved most of all. 
> 
> I love any and all feedback and will flail over it. I can also, as usual, be found at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr.


	24. The Fig Tree Putteth Forth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wake-up calls that come before dawn aren't always a bad thing, but the news behind them has to be pretty damn good.

_Bzzt. Bzzt_. 

Benny’s eyelids came unstuck from each other with considerable difficulty. “Chava,” he whispered, the name coming out in a rasp, “is that my phone?” 

“Dunno,” she mumbled. “Get it.” 

Benny rolled over onto his side and reached for his phone, catching a glimpse of the display on the clock radio as he did so. Five AM. Wonderful. His hand found the phone and he swiped the ‘answer’ icon mid- _bzzt_. “Hello?” 

“Ben, it’s Bo. I’ve got news.” 

He yawned and shuffled himself up into a sitting position. “What’s goin’ on?” 

“Guess,” Boaz said. 

“ _Not_ in the mood,” Benny replied. Would anyone really blame him for being short with his brother if it was arse in the morning when Boaz bothered him? “Tell me or I’m goin’ back to sleep.” A huge yawn forced itself out of his throat, making the last word come out very distorted. 

“Well, then!” said Boaz gleefully, almost maniacally, and at that, Benny knew what was going on. His heart began to pound; all of a sudden, he wasn’t sleepy anymore. “Dinah –“ 

Benny pushed the covers off his legs and interrupted him. “Dinah’s had the baby, hasn’t she?” He flipped on the bedside lamp, checked his position to make sure he wasn’t about to hit the wall, and leaped out of bed. “Or she’s havin’ it, Bo! That’s it, isn’t it?” 

“Had it,” Boaz answered. Benny held the phone against his ear with his shoulder as he struggled out of his Y-fronts. “’Bout half an hour ago. Benny, I’m a da!” That explained the mania, all right. “Will ye come over to hospital and see us now? Sorry, sorry, I know it’s early.” 

He tossed his Y-fronts off his ankle and pumped a fist in satisfaction when they landed in the laundry basket. “You’re daft, Bo. I’m comin’ right over. It’s Veterans’, right? I don’t want to get the wrong hospital.” 

“’Tis,” said Boaz, and Benny definitely heard him sniffle. Boaz was crying, then, but he had the best possible reason for it. Benny suspected he would be an absolute blubbering mess on the day his first child was born (preferably with Chava, and he hoped beyond hope that she would agree to marry him). “God, Ben! I’m…I’m a –“ 

“A da, aye. I know, Bo. All the best.” Benny pressed his lips against the phone. “I’ll be over in two shakes. Anything y’want me to bring? I could bring Dee…uh, some ice chips or something. Do they give ‘em that after they’ve had a kid?” 

“They gave her that already. Now she wants food, but I’ve got that covered. Wait, no.” Boaz paused, and Benny heard voices in the background. “ _Bill’s_ got that covered. He’s goin’ down to the cafeteria. No, you haven’t got to bring anything. Just come over.” 

Benny made a noise of assent and stretched his unoccupied arm over his head, feeling the flesh shake. “All right. I’ve got to get dressed, Boaz. Congratulations, I love ye, and I’ll be over soon.” 

“Right-o,” said Boaz, and hung up before Benny could. 

Benny shook his head and looked at Chava, who was on her stomach with her head under the pillow on her side of the bed. “Sorry, love, only I can’t get dressed with the lights off,” he said. “Got to go to Veterans’ Hospital. Dinah’s had the baby, can you believe that?” 

“Mm, I heard you,” she said, withdrawing her head. Her lovely brown hair had gotten all mussed in the movement, which really made it just as lovely as when it was neat. “Are you getting Bram up, too?” 

“Oh,” said Benny, “hadn’t thought about that. Don’t think I will.” Bram’s sleep schedule wasn’t terribly regular even on good days. When he slept, it was best not to disturb him until he woke up on his own, or he would be truly not himself for the rest of the day. “Just tell him the news for me when he gets up, will ye?” 

Chava rubbed her eyes and adjusted her tangled nightgown around her chest and belly. “Sure. Do you want me to leave the lights on for you?” 

Benny went to her side of the bed and kissed her cheek, stark nakedness be damned. “Appreciate the offer, love, but you don’t have to do that,” he said. “I know y’like to be _shomer_.” Chava had abandoned much of the strictness her Orthodox family had taught her about what it was and wasn’t acceptable to do on Saturdays, but she still preferred to use as few electric devices and do as little unnecessary work as she could. Benny resolved then and there that she was a darling for making the offer and would therefore get a nice fresh coffee cake for herself with powdered sugar on top, her favorite, after he got home. He was good at baking those. 

“Are you sure?” she asked. 

“Aye, I am. I won’t crash into the house without the floodlights on. It’ll probably be light out when I get back, anyway.” He kissed her again, this time on her mouth. “Got to get my bum into some clothes now. Boaz is waiting at Veterans’. Can you believe I’m an uncle?” 

“Yeah, I can believe it.” She put her head back under the pillow. “We’ve had plenty of time to get used to that. Oh, hey.” She rolled away from the pillow and lay supine in the middle of the bed. “Speaking of the Derenskys, are you ever planning to tell Theo about our offer?” 

Benny dug into his dresser and put on a pair of clean pants, then went looking for more clothes. “I’ll ask Dee when she wants to. Haven’t wanted to bother her.” It was warm out for May, so a T-shirt and shorts it was. He didn’t want to go into a hospital all sweaty; the doctors would be on his fat body like flies on fruit, looking for some class of health problem. 

“That’s fair,” Chava said. “It’s her body, too. Just tell them I said congratulations and I’ll come visit them if they want.” 

“If they’re allowed t’have ye,” said Benny. “They’ve really tightened up the restrictions on new babies. Don’t even know if _I’ll_ be allowed to see the - _damn_ it, I forgot to ask about the sex!” That was the first thing he should have asked. Well, maybe second; he had to find out if it was healthy first. 

Chava gave him a squiggly-eyed expression. “Sex? Oh, wait. You’re talking about the baby’s sex.” She laughed and shook her head. “I think I need to get back to sleep. Wake me up if you get back before I’m up.” 

“I will.” He pulled up his shorts, crossed over to kiss her one last time, and detoured to stuff a bunch of tissues into his pocket before he left. Boaz would probably be a blubbering mess when he saw him. Knowing his brother, he wouldn’t remember to bring any tissues, either. 

Tiptoeing through the dark kitchen, he stopped at the fruit bowl on the table and decided on another detour to have breakfast. Another thing it would be inadvisable for him to do in a hospital setting was buy food, or eat anything at all. Never mind that his cholesterol was a hundred sixty and, when nurses used the right size of blood-pressure cuff, his pressure was perfect. People looked at him and only saw the fat. 

Breakfast eaten, he walked out to his car, which smelled like a fresh new cinnamon air freshener (the old one having finally died a couple of weeks ago) and drove to Veterans’. It wasn’t summer yet, not close enough to the summer solstice for it to be really light outside, but he enjoyed the fading darkness nevertheless. The roads were peaceful this time of day, or night, whichever you preferred to call it. Benny felt his heart rate – which had picked up at the idea of being surrounded by doctors – go back to normal as he drove. 

In contrast to the roads, Veterans’ Hospital was a hotbed of movement, light, and chaos, and Benny wondered if places like this were ever quiet as he parked near the emergency entrance. God, he hoped he wasn’t about to get a tow from this. The last time he’d been at this hospital was when Vince died almost three years ago; he and Bram got their treatment at Brigham and Women’s in Boston. 

It was a short walk across the parking lot to A&E, and inside, the brightness made him blink. “Hello,” he said to the woman at the desk. “I’m looking for the maternity department. My sister-in-law’s just had a baby.” 

“Oh, congratulations!” she told him, with a bright smile. That was probably the best news she got this time of night. He was no doctor, but Benny thought that usual night visits to the hospital were probably for grimmer reasons than this. 

“Mm-hm. Best way to wake up at five in the morning.” He returned her smile. “Could I have directions?” 

She pointed down the nearest corridor. Benny noticed that the nametag on a lanyard around her neck said she was called Eve. “If you go down that hallway, you’ll find a set of elevators on the left just before it branches. Take it up to the ninth floor and then turn right. There’ll be signs that show you the way to the maternity wing. It’s new, so it’s kind of a trek, unfortunately.” She looked him up and down; it was quick, but still, he could just about hear the words in her head that screamed about how he could use the exercise. 

Over three hundred pounds and it still felt like every single one of them hurt when someone gave him that look, even though he’d looked like this for over a decade and hadn’t been much of a stick before that. “That won’t be a problem,” Benny said. “You know, your name’s the same as my girlfriend’s. Eve’s the English version of the Hebrew name Chava.” 

“Well,” said Eve, “imagine that.” Her smile returned. “All right, have a good day. If you get lost, just ask anyone with a white coat who doesn’t look like they’re going off to save someone’s life.” Her chuckle made Benny think she’d probably deployed that one plenty of times before. 

He gave her one last nod and, just in case she was watching, set off at a jog. She could have a look at his healthy fat arse, and kiss it, too; the thought made his mood lift significantly as he approached the elevators. 

Having the elevator to himself brought Benny’s spirits back up to normal, too. When he got to the ninth floor, he stopped by a map on the wall and re-checked that he was where he was supposed to be. “Turn right,” he muttered. It looked like he was currently in the surgical recovery area and the maternity wing branched off it. 

It felt like he’d walked at least a quarter of the Boston Marathon by the time he found the right ward, and since he’d done it about half a dozen times since moving to America, he would know. There was a woman who seemed to be the information person here, too, manning a fancy desk made of glass that matched the posh atmosphere. This was probably to attract the extreme natural-childbirth set, he thought; good investment. They usually had money. “I’m looking for my brother,” he said tentatively to the woman, who wore cornrows and had brown skin with darker freckles across her nose; a pair of plastic-rimmed glasses perched there as well. 

She looked up. “Are you visiting a patient?” Oh, the dark circles under her eyes were just _terrible_. Benny didn’t envy people who worked these long hours. 

“My brother,” Benny repeated. “Er, sorry. My sister-in-law’s had a baby. I think I’m supposed to meet my brother here.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry again. My sister-in-law’s name is Dinah…” What was he meant to say for the last name? Had she changed it yet, or was she going to at all? It already had a hyphen in, and with all the upheaval involved in doing the wedding in Ireland, it had slipped his – 

“Benny, there you are!” Boaz wrapped his arms around Benny from behind and squeezed him hard. “Oh, ye made it.” 

Benny dislodged himself and gave Boaz a proper hug from the front. He’d never felt comfortable getting tackled. “Got here as fast as I could,” he said. 

“Brilliant,” said Boaz. “You didn’t bring Bram, right?” 

“No, he was asleep. I didn’t want to bollocks him up.” Benny broke the hug and held Boaz at arm’s length. His brother’s face was pink from forehead to neck, especially around his eyes and nose. “Have y’been crying, Bo?” 

Boaz nodded. “Couldn’t help it,” he said, and then, as Benny probably should have expected, his mouth screwed up and his eyes started streaming again. 

“Shite,” Benny said, glancing towards the woman at the desk. She’d gone back to whatever she was doing on her computer, though he didn’t know whether that was out of courtesy or a backlog of work. “All right, Bo, let’s sit.” He directed his brother towards a nicely-stuffed chair in a little circular waiting area nearby, but Boaz didn’t let go of him when he tried to shake him off, so he ended up sitting down himself with Boaz in his lap. That was a fair change from when they’d been kids – Boaz was three years older and had always been the one to comfort him. 

Boaz’s stupid hat pressed against Benny’s chin and Boaz mechanically reached up to adjust it. “I’m a da,” he said for probably the millionth time that morning. Benny couldn’t imagine he’d been the first one to hear it. “’m’not ready, Ben. What if I d-drop the thing?” 

“First off, don’t call your kid a thing,” Benny said, “ _Jaysis_. Second, I think everyone’s gotten dropped on their head, probably. Gad said Omer dropped Galil and Galil’s got almost straight A’s. Nothin’ to worry about, eh?” 

“ _Almost?_ ” Boaz gasped. 

“Right, an’ no helicopter parenting.” Benny patted Boaz’s back. “Can ye maybe pull it together? I want to see my –“ Dammit, he’d forgotten to ask about the sex again! “My whatever it is. Guess I’ll find out when I’m in there.” 

He gave Boaz a bit of a push, and like a cat – thankfully – Boaz landed on his feet and stood up. “You’re right,” he said, wiping his face on his sleeve. 

Benny stood up and pulled out the tissues. He was the master of foresight and probably deserved a medal or a plaque for it, really. “Have I got to do everything m’self?” he asked lightly, and mopped Boaz’s face. “Ma’s gonna lay into ye for bein’ a baby when she gets here.” He tossed the tissues in the nearest trash can and frowned. “Wait, she _is_ coming, right? Please tell me she knows your wife’s had a baby.” 

“God, no, not yet,” said Boaz. “I just called _you_. I’ve got to call Ma, haven’t I?” 

“Do it later.” Benny grabbed Boaz’s wrist and stopped his hand on its way to his pocket. “She’ll understand. Show me the baby!” 

“And the money,” Boaz joked. He straightened his hat again and grabbed Benny’s hand. “We’re just down here!” 

They ran down the corridor just like they’d done when they played outside as kids, Boaz pulling Benny from up ahead, going so fast that Benny didn’t even have time to apologize to the passing doctor who looked at them funny. “Here we are,” said Boaz when they stopped in front of a door, his breath heavy, then knocked on the door. “Dee? I’ve got Benny. All right to come in?” 

“Ask Theo,” Dinah’s voice came faintly through the wood. “He’s guarding the door.” 

“Fuck _that_ shite,” Boaz muttered, yanked it open, and pulled Benny past a scowling Theo, who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. “God, Theo, it’s _our_ baby, not yours.” 

Someone had dimmed the lights over Dinah’s bed; propped up a little ways, she lay there with her eyes closed and her arms full of a bundle of baby. “Hi, Benny,” she said, yawning. “Sorry if I don’t get up. Exhausted.” 

“Don’t worry,” Benny told her. “I would be, too. Congratulations, and hello there, Bill!” Bill, who was sitting near the head of Dinah’s bed, waved at him. “So what have I got?” He came around to the other side of the bed, not too close in case she didn’t want human contact, and peered down at the newest member of his family. “Bo never told me.” 

“You have a nephew,” Dinah said around another yawn. “Dammit, I’m so sorry. Been at this for…um, twelve hours. His name is Gregory Vincent.” 

“Gregory Vincent,” Benny repeated, and leaned closer. The baby’s head was covered in dark hair and his dark eyes were slits in his squashed-looking face. “He’s named after Vince?” 

Boaz sat down on the foot of the bed, avoiding Dinah’s feet. “That he is,” he said. “Vince was a good man. We changed it just a bit – didn’t want to remind the lads about their dead da every time we say their brother’s name.” He grinned. “’Course, now it means he’s sort of named after two idiot Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle are Vincent and Gregory, remember?” 

“Shut up, Boaz,” Dinah said before Benny could reply that it had been years since he’d read Harry Potter, and closed her eyes again. “He’s Gregory after my great-uncle Gerhard. Everyone called him Greg.” 

“He got out of Europe before the Holocaust,” said Theo, surprising Benny. He’d forgotten Theo was there, truthfully. It was his own fault for standing there like a statue. “Went to Israel, got married, had my uncle Neil. Dane is Greg’s grandson.” 

“I do wish I could have met him,” Bill chimed in. 

Theo snorted. “No, you don’t. He would have weirded you out. Greg was always pinching my _tuchus_.” 

“Well, now we’ll pinch Baby Greg’s _tuchus_ and that’ll even it out,” said Dinah. “Benny, do you want to hold him?” 

“Yes, please.” More than anything. It was as though he’d suddenly been punched in the gut, so strong was the urge to hold his new nephew in his arms. It was probably his biological clock; he was, after all, thirty-six. “Have I got to go wash my hands?” 

Dinah nodded. “New rule is that technically, no one’s supposed to get within like three feet of the baby for a few months because if they get sick, the automatic response is a spinal tap.” 

“About that!” Bill said indignantly, and rose out of his chair. “Bloody ridiculous. Kids get sick all the time. Are we meant to hermetically seal babies until some arbitrarily-determined point? That’s a recipe for loads of food allergies when they get older, and Gregory’s breast-feeding anyway!” He went back and forth for a few paces next to the bed. “That means he’s got Dinah’s immune system working for him.” 

“Really?” Benny asked. “How does that work?” Of course he’d heard all about how breast-feeding was good for a baby’s immune system, but no one had ever bothered to tell him the details. 

Bill stopped pacing and sat back down. “The mother’s adaptive immunity expresses itself in the colostrum and the breast milk,” he said. “Loads of immunoglobulin A that the plasma cells produce – that’s mucosal immunity -” He broke off, and Benny suspected it was probably because he’d gone a bit cross-eyed himself. Biology was never his best subject. “I’m sorry, I’ve been thinking medical thoughts for the past twelve hours.” 

Boaz patted Bill on the back. “He was here to protect Dee,” he said, “and I salute him for it.” 

“Yes, because doctors will jump at every excuse to give a woman an unnecessary C-section,” Bill said, and rolled his eyes. “They think we don’t all know they just want to go fucking _golfing_. I wasn’t born yesterday.” 

“Bill was a really good bouncer,” Dinah agreed. “I got to squat in the tub. It helped a lot.” She petted Gregory’s damp hair. “No episiotomy, no C-section. Oh, Benny, sorry – I asked if you wanted to hold him!” 

“Right. I asked if I had to wash my hands.” Benny rubbed his hands against his thighs. “I’m not expecting you to answer all the questions on time, Dee. You’ve just pushed that out of you.” 

She hummed, sounding amused. “Do you hear your uncle, Greggy? You’re a ‘that.’” The baby pushed against her with a fretful _eh_. “You totally are. You were still inside me an hour and a half ago.” Tickling the top of his head, she looked up at Benny. “Okay, yes, go wash your hands in the bathroom and use the paper towels after. Then I’ll hand him over.” 

“We’re in the hospital anyway,” said Bill. “If by some freak chance he catches something after his routine silver nitrate and vitamin K, we’re in the right place to treat it.” 

“Bill,” said Theo, a laugh in his voice, “drop it.” 

As Benny went to the loo and washed his hands, he heard Dinah exclaim “Oh, now he decides to talk again!”, the follow-up to which was drowned out by the water. He made sure to scrub hard under his nails, because despite Bill pooh-pooing illness, he wasn’t about to be the reason his innocent new nephew caught something horrible. Babies could catch E. coli, couldn’t they? He thought he remembered hearing something about that. 

Theo was sitting on the end of the bed beside Boaz when Benny came back, smiling at Gregory. “Hello again, Greggy,” he said, the words almost a coo. Quite a turn-around, Benny thought, from the scowling man at the door. Did Theo have a personality disorder or something? “I’m the fun uncle on the other side of your family.” 

“And I’m what, chopped liver?” Benny asked. 

“On the _other_ side of the family, I said,” Theo sent over his shoulder. “You get to hold him now, anyway.” 

“So I do.” Benny went to the side of Dinah’s bed. “You’ll have to tell me if I’m holding him wrong, Dee. And are we calling him Greggy now?” 

Dinah sat up straighter, repositioning the baby in her arms. “It’s as good a nickname as any,” she said. “Okay, Benny, hold out your arms. I’m gonna transfer him over. Hold him upright against your chest.” 

Benny did as she said and found himself with his arms full of tiny nephew, heavier than he looked. “Hello there, Greggy,” he said, and held Greggy close against his chest. “I’m your Uncle Benny. You’ve got an Uncle Bram who’s really a cousin, but he’s not here right now.” He began to sway in place almost instinctively, pressing his lips against the top of Greggy’s head. “That’s a good-smelling lad.” 

“Doesn’t he smell good?” Boaz said with a nod. “Look at you, Ben. You’re a natural with him. You and Chava should make some of your own.” 

Greggy began to squirm restlessly in Benny’s arms and he adjusted his hold, cradling the baby securely in the crook of his arm. Now there was a use for his fat: making a nice pillow to support his nephew’s head. “Your da’s got no business telling me when to reproduce, has he? No, he doesn’t. No, he doesn’t! I’ve got a wee nephew to spoil now.” He lightly booped Greggy’s nose with his free hand. 

“ _Eh_ ,” said Greggy, and grabbed Benny’s finger. 

“Oh,” said Benny, and blinked as his eyes welled up. Tiny hand, perfect little fingers, wee fingernails – somehow, Dinah and Boaz had made the most beautiful thing in the world. “Love you, Greggy. Your uncle loves you.” He wiped his eyes and briefly squeezed them shut, sniffling. “Someone’s got to take him.” His voice came out wobbly. “I’m too emotional. I – I’ll drop him or something.” 

Theo elbowed his way over to Benny and held out his arms. “Hand him over,” he said. “I want to hold him, too.” 

“Theo, you already held him,” said Dinah, but Benny gave Theo the baby anyway. “Benny, you don’t have to do whatever my brother says. He’ll get spoiled that way.” 

“In case you didn’t already know,” Theo said, “I’m already spoiled.” He rocked Greggy in his arms and whispered something in his tiny ear, then kissed it. Greggy made a noise of discomfort and moved his head. “Sorry, buddy, did I get you with my beard? Uncle Bill complains about beard burn all the time.” 

“Okay, enough sap.” Dinah crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. Benny had to marvel at how she had the energy to make _any_ gestures of sarcasm after twelve hours of labor. If it were him, he suspected he’d be flat out and probably snoring to wake the dead. “Theo, give him to Bill now. You’ve been hogging Greggy so much, Bill hasn’t gotten to hold him at all!” 

Bill stood up and, wordlessly, tugged Greggy out of Theo’s arms with an expression of ‘that’s the end of _that_.’ Immediately, Theo’s face fell into the stony scowl Benny had seen at the door. “I’m gonna go stand guard again,” he said, then went to do just that. 

“Theo, you’re bein’ a pillock!” Boaz called after him. “A twelve-year-old pillock.” 

“Really,” Benny agreed, “what’s with the pouting? I’ve never seen him like this.” 

“I can hear you,” Theo said in a growl. 

Dinah pointedly ignored him as Bill sat on the bed with Greggy. “I don’t think it’s about being a twelve-year-old,” she said. “We haven’t had a baby in the family in fourteen years. He’s being possessive, that’s all.” 

“Hey! I can _still_ hear you!” Theo said, though he didn’t move away from the door. 

“Possessive over a baby,” said Benny. “Hmm.” This was probably a horrible time to ask Dinah if they could tell Theo and Bill about their plan soon, but while he was here, he might as well mull over how best to ask in his head. Looking at Greggy would probably be a good source of inspiration. “Where are Phil and Caleb, then?” 

He’d directed it at Dinah, but it was Bill who answered. “Looking after Freddy and the cats at ours,” he said absently, still staring at Greggy and bouncing him up and down. “Theo and I decided they were old enough. We all thought it was a bit early to wake them.” 

Benny pulled out his phone and looked at the time display. It was just after six AM, far too early to be waking kids up, all right. “That’s good,” he said, “letting ‘em have their fun shenanigans. I bet they’ve ordered all sorts of junk food.” 

“Oh, _that’s_ not even a question,” Bill said. “Theo and I had to field three calls from them last night about how many pizzas it was okay to order. I just ended up telling them to leave it to their own discretion, that’s how hectic things were here.” 

“Yeah, I think I heard that last one!” Dinah said. “Did I catch something about dessert pizza, or was that just contractions making me loopy?” 

Bill groaned. “You didn’t misinterpret. They wanted to order every dessert pizza on the menu.” 

“Oh, God, those two,” Dinah said with a sigh. “Remind me to scream at them later.” She looked from Bill to Theo, then caught Benny’s eye; at that, Benny knew that they were on the same wavelength. He nodded hard. “Boaz? Benny? I think we might have something to tell Theo and Bill.” 

Boaz lifted his head. “Right now? But you just…” 

“I know, I know,” Dinah interrupted him, “it might just be the delivery hormones. Speaking of.” She leaned over slowly and looked at Greggy, who was restless in Bill’s arms. “I think he might want to nurse. Can you give him to me? I want to try that now. I mean, unless you guys are uncomfortable with seeing breast-feeding.” 

“I’ve seen it so many times, it hasn’t been a novelty for years,” said Bill, and gave Greggy back. “Boaz? Benny?” Benny shook his head and Boaz murmured a no. “And Theo’s too far away to complain about sister-breasts. I’ll get a lactation consultant if you need help. What’s your announcement?” 

“Boaz, help me untie my gown, would you?” Dinah said instead of answering, and brought Greggy to her breasts when Boaz had done so. “Theo, come over here. I want to talk to both of you about this.” 

Theo frowned at the door. “I can’t, Dee. The boys could come in.” 

“They won’t. It’s not even seven in the morning yet.” Dinah crooked a finger at him. “Get your overprotective ass over here right this second, or so help me –“ 

Theo looked heavenward, made a noise that sounded like a cow expressing displeasure, and did as Dinah said. “You’re not going vegan, are you?” His expression shifted into abject horror. “Oh, shit, if Benny’s going vegan, I’ll have to stop coming to Hillel!” 

Dinah held up her hand. “No way. We’re not going…oh, hello.” She tilted her head down at Greggy. “Look who latched on. Wow, that’s a _really_ hungry boy.” 

They were getting more than slightly off-topic, not something terribly uncommon in this extended family, but suddenly, Benny saw a way to fix that. “Our announcement has a bit to do with him,” he said, pointing to Greggy, “and people like him.” 

“Huh? Okay. Yes, okay.” Dinah shook her head, probably getting the labor-induced bats out of her belfry. “Theo, Bill, Bo and I have been talking with Chava and Benny, and we’ve decided that if you want one, we’d like to give you a kid.” 

That, Benny thought as silence fell over the room, was _not_ really the best way to introduce the concept of surrogacy. “Like…steal one?” said Theo, blinking. “What are you talking about?” 

“It’s not exactly _givin_ ’ ye a baby,” Boaz cut in. “We’d only help you make it. Everyone except me would help, I mean…bollocks.” He knuckled his forehead. “I’m sleep-deprived. Benny, would you tell it?” 

“Dinah?” Benny asked. She nodded at him. “All right, well, Chava and Dinah’ve been talking. Chava’s only gone twenty-nine and we’ve got lots of time to have kids, and no insult to you, Dee, but you’re a bit older, right, and we all thought if you and Bo wanted more kids of your own...” He stopped, drew in a breath, let it out, and tried again. “Dee’s got lots of eggs, but not so much uterus time left. Chava’s got plenty of uterus time, but she’s not related to either o’ you. We thought if ye want, Dinah can give an egg and Bill can fertilize it, and Chava’ll bake it up for you two. Only if you want,” he concluded, aware as the words came out that he was being redundant. 

Radio static from Theo and Bill; they just stood there, wide-eyed. Boaz’s Adam’s apple moved up and down with his nervous gulp. “I just thought – you’ve mentioned kids,” Dinah said, moving the hand cupped around Greggy’s head as he started to let go of her nipple. “We thought you might want to have a baby that’s related to both of you. You don’t have to. It’s just an offer.” 

“Are you _kidding?_ ” Theo said, so loudly that Benny startled in place and saw Bill do the same. “Are you – you’re not, right? A kid? _Our_ kid?” He grabbed his ponytail and yanked it hard around his shoulder. “Yes! Fuck, yes!” 

“Glad you’re so appreciative of the off _oof_ ,” said Dinah as Theo hugged her and Greggy both. Between them, Greggy whimpered. “God, Theo, you’ll make him cry. Off.” She pushed her brother away and held Greggy close, stroking his head. “Okay, Greggy, ow, Mommy put you down on her boob. Bad idea. Please don’t cry. Uncle Theo was just being stupid.” 

Greggy’s whimpers turned into screams and Dinah bounced him up and down to no avail. “Dee, hit the call button,” Boaz said. “We can have a nurse –“ 

“ _What?_ ” Dinah shouted. 

“Have a nurse look at him!” Boaz shouted even louder over Greggy’s wails. Benny put his hands over his ears, but it didn’t help. “Calm him down! We’re in no shape.” 

Wise words, and fortuitous. A nurse was in the room within thirty seconds, rubbing her eyes. “What’s the problem?” she asked, somehow magically projecting her voice enough to be heard without shouting. Benny had heard Bill do the same thing before. They probably taught it in nursing school. “How can I help?” 

“Screaming kid!” Dinah yelled. “My brother was being an idiot. Is it okay if my son goes to the nursery for a while? Does that make us terrible parents?” 

“Not at all,” said the nurse, and expertly scooped up Greggy. “Let me know when you want him back.” She rocked the baby, patting his back, and flashed them a smile. “I’m on rounds for this area.. Someone can bring him.” 

“Thank you,” Dinah said, sounding relieved beyond belief, and the nurse took Greggy out of the room. His screams grew fainter, but she didn’t speak again until they had left earshot. “Theo,” she said, rounding on her brother as best one could from a hospital bed, “don’t do stupid shit like that. You can’t hug me while I’m holding a newborn.”

Theo sat down on the bed and put an arm around her shoulders. “Scoot over. I’m sorry, Dee. I just got excited.” The grin that had spread across his face when Dinah first unveiled her news suddenly returned. “God, a kid! Our – Bill, are you hearing this?” Just as suddenly as it had appeared, his smile disappeared. “Do you…want a kid with me?” 

“You lack a vagina,” Bill said faintly. “I think you mean to ask if I want a kid with your sister. I…” He turned his head toward Dinah. “When?” 

She laughed. “I mean, not _now_. Later, like in a few months. I’d have to take hormones and stuff. Chava would have to be implanted.” 

“Implanted?” Now Bill chuckled. “That’s not what the term is.” 

“Don’t blame me, I’m not a doctor.” Dinah reached out a hand, and Bill stood up and took it. “Bill, Theo is the world’s best brother when he’s not hugging me while I’m holding a kid or letting my son fall off the roof or whatever. You’re the world’s best brother-in-law. I _want_ to do this for you guys. So does Chava.” 

Bill sat on Theo’s feet and immediately recoiled, but didn’t get up. “Ugh, Theo, you’ve got the world’s longest toes. They’re poking me in the arse.” Benny couldn’t help a snicker at that. “Dinah, what about the cost? IVF isn’t cheap.” 

“About that,” Dinah said. “You guys would have to foot a big part of the bill if you wanted to do it. Theo has more money than God, but I know it’s an imposition.” 

“I can cover it,” Theo said. “All of it. If Bill wants to have a sperm-kid with your egg, I’m full speed ahead.” He took Bill’s other hand. “Do you want to? I swear, it’s okay to say no.” 

Bill’s smile was strained. “I appreciate the lack of coercion,” he said. “Soft yes on that. I think we’d have the most amazing child in the world, of course, but there are time considerations to think of and such.” 

Theo nodded. “I understand. Take all the time you need to think about it. Like I said, it’s okay if you don’t want to do it.” He squeezed Dinah around the waist. “I just appreciate the offer and you’re the best sister I’ve ever met. That includes other people’s sisters.” 

“Thank you,” Bill said, expression softening. “Benny, do you want to take a walk to the vending machines? I’m peckish. Dinah hasn’t had anything to eat in too long, too. I never did get to the cafeteria.” 

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Dinah said, and touched the breast that Greggy hadn’t been nursing from with a grimace. “Ow. Dammit, the all-expenses-paid train to Titsville only got rid of half its passengers. Boaz, can you help me get this stuff out?” 

“Colostrum,” Bill supplied. 

Theo made a face. “Seriously? How long have you been waiting to bust that one out, Dee?” 

“A while for the first part,” she admitted. “I wasn’t expecting the half-drainage situation. The all-expenses-paid train to Titsville isn’t a new invention, though. I’ll give you that.” 

“I knew it,” Theo said. “You want me to go get you some hot chocolate while those two are raiding the vending machines? I bet you could use a hot drink.” 

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Bill said. “All right, Benny, let’s go visit the machines down the hall. Theo, we’ll regroup with you here in a bit.” 

They set off past a number of rooms, some with their doors closed, some not. Though Benny was more sure than not that the ones with open doors didn’t have women in active labor behind them, he still took the precaution of closing his eyes when they passed one. “All right,” he said when they were standing in front of an extremely well-stocked vending machine, “what’s going on? You’re not yourself.” 

“It would be better to say that about Theo,” Bill said, shaking his head. “Benny, I’ve never seen him like this. I’d swear he’s gone absolutely _manic_.” 

“Manic how?” Benny asked. “Like what he did when Dee told you two about the baby?” Dinah might like some Pop-Tarts, but for his money, he’d prefer an Almond Joy or two. Boaz didn’t understand why he liked coconut, even though it was the best food in the world, and when Benny told him so, Boaz called him an _arse burger_ until it was tempting to turn him into dinner. Sometimes, he thought it had been a bad idea to get that diagnosis. 

“I – maybe,” said Bill with a sigh. “Worse, but not as sudden. I know that doesn’t make sense. He’s been so focused on his damn research and this…the writing project we’re doing, sorry, can’t give details.” A flash of guilt crossed his features. “I shouldn’t even have said that much.” 

Benny put his hand on Bill’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Bill. I know about Theo’s alter ego. He told me after Dee and Bo’s weddin’.” Hadn’t it been a surprise to hear it from Theo’s mouth, too. Pattern recognition had made Benny suspect it for a while, but he hadn’t expected that Theo would admit it. Theo had gone all deer-in-the-headlights after Benny told him so; he’d fixed that by telling Theo that not everyone had what he called his ‘autistic super-powers.’ “You two are doin’ a book?” 

Bill’s face sagged with relief. “Yes, we are,” he said. “When did he have time to tell you? I couldn’t get him alone for a moment. Your mother grabbed him and wouldn’t stop talking about how he needed to get some more food into him. No use telling her he’s already over two hundred pounds.” 

“That’s muscle,” Benny pointed out. “He’s high-density. Ma’s intense.” It shocked people who didn’t know her except by sight. She had Boaz’s black hair and Benny’s build and looked like a short, big-bellied Weeble. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, and – as he always admitted smugly when Boaz accused him of such – he was her favorite. “Did she try to feed you up, too?” 

“Yes, but that’s not the point,” said Bill. “No, wait, the wedding’s not the point, either. I don’t care when you found out, really – I need to know if this is normal for him. You’ve known him longer than I have.” 

Benny took a dollar out of his wallet and got an Almond Joy to eat while they talked. Looked like this was going to be a long one. “What’s ‘this’, exactly?” he asked, mouth full. “Got to be clearer.” 

“ _Theo’s_ intensity,” Bill clarified. “His recent intensity. He’s been going on about the bloody research for months, this stuff about disproving the Exodus story to shake up all the evangelists. Apparently, his grandfather was trying to make headway into the same thing when he died.” 

“Oh, that’s interesting!” Benny said, and caught himself. “Sorry for interruptin’.” He wiped some coconut out of his mustache. “You think that’s made him go over all funny? It’s heavy stuff.” 

“Not the research itself. I’m worried because he’s wanted to do _nothing_ but research and write. I wake up in the middle of the night and he’s not in bed. Found him downstairs in his study at one AM once and he practically hissed at me.” 

This was going out of the realm of appropriate vending-machine talk. Benny turned his head to make sure that no one was behind them and then looked back at Bill. “Is there a place for us to sit, maybe?” he said quietly. “We should get our food and stop cloggin’ the egress.” There he went again with another architecture word. It had been more than fifteen years since he dabbled in it and the words still wouldn’t leave his head – he hoped Bill wouldn’t look at him funny. 

“No,” said Bill, “you’re right. I think there’s a lounge for patients’ families down that way.” He pointed to the hallway that adjoined their current position in an L-shape. “We could talk there if there aren’t too many people about.” 

“Brilliant.” Benny took out some more money and chose snacks for himself, Dinah, and Boaz, who probably hadn’t eaten since Dinah’s last meal and would start talking about his growling stomach as soon as they got back (if he wasn’t already). Bill did the same, and with their arms laden, they found a small, chair-filled room nearby that only had one old man sleeping across two of the chairs. 

Bill indicated the man with his chin. “Question: do you think he’s someone’s father or someone’s husband?” 

“Can’t tell these days,” Benny said. “There’re plenty of old guys who decide to try out the machinery for the fun of it. Just look at Gad.” He snorted at himself and sat down across the room from the sleeping man. “Come sit by me and tell me more.” 

“Right.” Bill dumped his stuff into the chair next to Benny – Benny did the same – and took a seat on his other side. Benny shifted; the chair arms were digging into his hips. This would be very uncomfortable before too long. “I hate myself for this, but I rang Randall Greenwood to see if he’s noticed anything off about Theo. He said no, just reduced office hours. Have you _ever_ known Theo to have reduced office hours? He lives for his students!” 

It would have been dishonest to say ‘no,’ since he’d never been to Theo’s workplace. “It’s not my area of expertise,” Benny told him. “I’ve never been to see Theo at the uni. I’d…say he’s not the sort to make less time for his students?” He shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve never visited.” 

“It was a stupid question,” said Bill, “never mind. Anyway, when he’s not on the computer, he’s trying to get outlines and story background done, and he’ll want my opinion on bits of writing he’s finished for this story.” He put his hands out in front of him, beseeching. “What am I meant to do, review them? I don’t know anything about what’s good writing and what isn’t. I asked him if his editor’s not supposed to hack it to bits anyway, but he said no, no, I’m co-writer, I’ve got to have a hand in it.” 

“That sounds terrible,” Benny said. 

Bill briefly gritted his teeth. “You don’t know the half of it.” 

Benny touched Bill’s hand. “Have you tried talking to him about this? Communication’s the best thing.” He and Chava didn’t keep things from each other, at least as far as he knew. She got all the details, right down to what he planned on making for dessert a week in advance if he had a fantastic idea about it (although she had asked him not to do that in the middle of the night anymore). 

“Sort of,” said Bill after a long pause, which told Benny all he needed to know about how much bullshite that was. “He’s lucid, so I’ve got to wonder if this is an exacerbation of anything serious or just a phase. You saw how the baby snapped him out of it.” 

“Aye, I thought he was his old self,” Benny agreed. “He was only fair grouchy at the door. Have ye considered that there might be something going on in your head, too? It’s been a stressful time, with Dee pregnant. Chava’s had to get all sorts of tests for her fertility, too. We’ve both been on edge about that.” 

Bill stopped mid-movement of his hand and tilted his head. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he said, sounding chastened. “First off, I’m sorry to be selfish. Fertility tests can be terribly invasive, can’t they?” Benny nodded. He’d held Chava’s hand through the transvaginal ultrasound and she still whimpered; it wasn’t that the thing was so thick, but that it probed where no probe should go and it wasn’t at all gentle to have inside her. “I wonder if I could ask Freddy. Gently, of course. He’s an observant kid.” 

“I could be there, if y’like,” Benny offered. If he could choose how his own kids would turn out, having them be like Freddy would be his first choice. He was only sorry that Freddy hadn’t been able to come to Dinah and Boaz’s wedding in Ireland four months ago. Ma and Dad, in the time they didn’t spend joking about how Dinah’s five-months-along belly was next door to what would’ve been a disgrace fifty years ago, would have loved him. But Bill and Theo had only been able to take a few days off work and hadn’t thought it was a good idea to pull Freddy out of school for a trans-Atlantic trip. Bram had been hard enough to get on the plane. 

“Would you?” Bill asked. “Or, oh, here’s an idea. You could take him for the day and ask about how he thinks things are going at home. I’m sure he’d be more honest with you. God knows I could be blowing everything completely out of proportion.” 

“Could be,” Benny said, trying to make his tone as neutral as he could. He’d had an earful from Freddy last year about how ‘Uncle Bill yelled and said bad words’ when their quilt was the recipient of a gift from the cats that should have remained in the litter box. Bill was definitely no stranger to blowing things out of proportion, though he wouldn’t be such an idiot as to say so now. “I’m sure Theo’ll be all right, Bill. He’s had intense times before you started dating him, and he can be a prat.” 

Bill picked up a bag of animal crackers and tore into it, which Benny supposed was his way of saying he was so relieved that he couldn’t even express it. “Thank you so much,” he said, mouth full of biscuits. Benny leaned away so he wouldn’t get crumbs all over him. “I knew there had to be an explanation. When did he act out before?” 

“Oh, academic buggery.” Not the literal type, obviously, but with another person from the Isles ( _not_ bloody Great Britain, no matter how the Commonwealth classified North Ireland), he'd be understood. “He’d come in and grouse about Morningwood, be a bear for a while.” He leaned in and added, with a wink, “Before you came onto the scene, I thought for sure he’d just break and shag the guy for a night.” 

“He’s married!” Bill said, looking just horrified at the thought. “And – ugh, I don’t even want to think about it. He’s so bony, Theo would snap him in half the second they kissed.” 

Well, he wouldn’t be bringing up that subject again. “He’s been on edge when he has papers to write, too,” Benny said. “The kind that you submit to journals. I think he was working on one once that went to fifty pages and he didn’t come to Hillel for three weeks. Vince kept worryin’ he’d miss the food.” 

“Did he?” 

“Of course he didn’t. I put some away for him and Vince brought it. Or he said he did.” Come to think of it, he’d never confirmed that with Theo, either. Vince could have eaten it himself, and so could Phil and Caleb, who’d been seven and six at the time and obsessed with anything that had chocolate chips in. “I think Theo will be all right.” 

Bill nodded. “I’d bet you’re right.” 

There was something at stake, though, more important than this particular worry. “Bill,” Benny began cautiously, “you sounded on the fence about having a kid. You can tell me – is it a no?” 

“No,” said Bill. His eyes went wide. “I mean no, it isn’t a no! I want a child with Theo. Dinah. Whoever I’m meant to have a child with. I can’t believe you and Boaz and Dinah and Chava and…” He squinted suspiciously at Benny. “Wait, did everyone know about this except for Theo and me?” 

“No, it was just us and Bram,” Benny said. “I’m glad to hear ye want this.” He stole one of Bill’s animal crackers. “Look, I’ve got a lion here. He’s goin’ down my gullet.” Swallowing, he held up a finger and added, “It’s like when Noah and Dwight got Kosher. You two have got to be a hundred percent sure or it’s not happenin’.” He wouldn’t be responsible for helping bring a child into the world who wasn’t fully wanted. 

Bill shook his head. “Theo would be an amazing father,” he said. “ _Will_ be, I should say. I’ve just got to talk to him and wait this out.” He touched Benny’s hand and squeezed hard. “Thank you for talking to me, Benny. I’m sorry I unloaded on you. You’ve got a new nephew to lavish with attention.” 

“I do,” said Benny. “Should we go see him?” 

Bill nodded and began to pick up the snacks. “They’ll be wondering where we’ve been,” he said. “Thanks again. I have to say, Greggy is terribly adorable. I’m looking forward to having a child if that’s what I’m going to get.” 

“Just for looks?” Benny teased. “Bill, that’s a terrible thing to say.” He picked up the rest of the snacks. “Got to agree, he’s gorgeous. He’ll grow into a looker when he’s older, if he’s got any chance of looking like Dee.” 

“Then you’d better tell her that,” said Bill as they started towards Dinah’s room. “She’ll want the boost.” 

Dinah and Boaz were drinking out of huge cups, likely the promised hot chocolate, when Benny and Bill returned, Boaz having taken Theo’s spot next to Dinah on the bed. Theo set his own cup down on the windowsill behind the radiator and stood up. “What took you two?” he asked. “Did you get lost?” 

Benny deposited the snacks on the wheeled table next to Dinah’s bed. “We had to choose stuff for you,” he said. “Don’t laugh. Food is a difficult venture. Can’t be sure if someone’s about to spit out the chocolate or what have you.” He sneaked a look at Theo – yes, he definitely appeared to have calmed down. Of course it had to be stress over Dinah. “What have you been talking about?” 

“Circumcision,” said Boaz, as Theo sat back down. Benny blinked, and his brother winked back at him. “We don’t think we’re gonna do a bris in front of everyone.” 

“No, _definitely_ not,” Dinah interjected. “I never liked that idea. Having some guy hack off part of your kid’s penis while dozens of people watch, no thanks.” She gave the idea a thumbs-down sign in the air. “I think we’ll wait to circumcise. It does way more damage than most people think if the baby’s eight days old.” 

Bill stood behind Theo and began to massage his shoulders. “No one gets it right, either,” he said. “Those damn ‘intactivists’ –“ 

“Intactivists?” Theo interrupted. “Are we talking about those fucking men’s rights activists? They don’t give a crap about anyone’s penises except their own.” He made a face. “There are actual concerns about tissue damage and all they care about is yelling about their penises in public.” 

“Theo’s absolutely right,” said Bill, nodding. “Theo, your trapezius muscles are full of knots. Anyway, the foreskin is still adhered to the glans when the baby is born, and ripping it away takes a lot of tissue with it. That’s why there’s such a massive scar. There’s loads of evidence that it takes away sensation, and we all know that ramming it into women for more sensation doesn’t help the rates of HIV. Micro-tears and all that.” 

“Er,” Benny said. Bloody hell, he hadn’t known there was a whole movement about this, nor that Bill’s career had taught him so much about damage to infant penises. He was starting to feel a little ill at the thought. “Aren’t you not supposed to be able to get AIDS if you're circumcised?” 

Dinah grabbed a bag of pretzels and started munching. “Yeah,” she said, “but soap and water exist. Also condoms. Greggy’s getting the ‘always wear a condom, no matter fucking what’ talk when he gets the sex talk.” 

Boaz kissed her cheek. “Even if they don’t always work,” he said. “That’s how Greggy came to be in the first place! Can I have one of those pretzels?” 

“Bill and I got more,” said Benny. “You can have your own.” 

“Ta, I will.” Boaz took the honey-twist pretzel rods that Benny had been on the fence about – good to see that they would get eaten instead of thrown away. “We’ll have it done when he’s a wee bit older,” he said, “and he can get a partial, like you and me. And a doctor’s gonna do it, not a _mohel_.” 

“Yeah, they only take the part that extends past the head.” Surprisingly, that came from _Theo_ , and Benny must have given him a funny look, because Theo added, “The original circumcisions were all partial. The first Biblical ones were all on adults, too. Look at Abraham – he was supposed to be over a hundred when he did his.” 

Theo knew practically everything there was to know about history, so Benny didn’t suppose he was wrong on this, either. “I’m on board with whatever you two decide,” he said, “including if ye want to take a sword to some of those men’s rights activists, Theo. I’m only wondering if our ma and dad’ll have an opinion on it.” 

“Not their decision,” said Boaz. “It’s not their penis.” A knock sounded at the door. “Come in.” 

The nurse from earlier entered, this time pulling a cart with her. “Hi, Dinah,” she said. “Just some routine checks on your blood pressure and temperature.” She waved at each of the room’s inhabitants in turn. “You’ll be getting these every couple of hours, sorry. I know it’s inconvenient.” 

Dinah sighed and held out her arm. “I understand. Is Greggy doing okay?” 

“Just fine,” said the nurse (Ann, according to her nametag), and put Dinah’s arm through the automatic blood-pressure cuff attached to her cart. “He’s sleeping right now. Any time you want him back, someone can bring him, but you should get some sleep, too. He’ll keep you up a lot after this.” 

“I know that,” said Dinah, chuckling. “I have two older sons.”

“Huh.” Ann looked at the monitor readings and nodded. “Okay, looks like you’re doing fine for BP. How old are your sons?” 

“Fourteen and fifteen,” Boaz said. “They’re good kids.” 

Ann took a thermometer off the cart and slipped off its sheath. “You two must be very proud of them. I bet they’ll be excited to meet their little brother, huh?” She brought the thermometer to Dinah’s face. “Okay, you know the drill. Open up and hold this under your tongue until it beeps.” 

“Oh, no, I’m not their da,” Boaz said as Dinah complied. “I’m their stepfather. Still very proud of them, though.” He squeezed Dinah’s shoulder. “Hope Greggy lives up to their example.” 

The thermometer beeped and Ann took it out, looked at the display, and nodded. “Normal. Have you had any excessive pain?” Dinah shook her head. “Discharge apart from what was expected?” 

“I haven’t really moved,” said Dinah, “but no. I feel okay.” She put her hands over the blankets covering her belly. “ _Really_ sore, though. I kind of hurt all over.” 

“That’s normal,” said Ann, “unfortunately.” She wheeled the cart away from the side of the bed. “Someone will be back to do this again in about two hours. Congratulations, by the way. I forgot to say that before.” 

“Thanks,” said Benny, and grinned to realize that everyone in the room had echoed his faux pas. Seemed like a baby was cause for everyone to take a bit of pride in themselves. In fact, seeing Greggy almost made him want to go home and try for one of his own right that minute. Thank goodness for his rational brain, or else he’d be up shit creek without a paddle, as the southern Americans liked to say. 

When Ann had left, Theo stretched his shoulders upward and gave a satisfied groan. “Bill, you have magic fingers. Also, are we done talking about my nephew’s penis or not? It’s fine if we’re not. I just want to know.” 

Anyone who could joke about circumcision had to be all right in the head. Even Bram wasn’t above a good circumcision joke, especially after he’d watched Mel Brooks movies. “That’s up to Dee and Bo,” Benny said. 

“Crap, I forgot we’ll have to tell Rabbi Fleischer about the no circumcision thing,” Dinah said, and put her head on Boaz’s shoulder. “I hope he’s not too pissed.” 

“He shouldn’t be,” said Boaz. “It’s not his decision, either.” 

“It’s not like we can’t switch congregations if he gets too pissy,” Dinah said contemplatively. “The East Coast is totally crawling with synagogues. Frum, not frum, the really weird ultra-frum ones. You know something? I’ve always wanted to set foot in one of those, just to see if the Hasids will throw stones at me.” 

Theo flinched, just a bit but still visibly. Probably remembering that attack he’d had in the parking lot two years ago, the poor guy. “I wouldn’t recommend it,” Benny said. “We love ye too much to let any Hasids do that to you. Maybe just look it up on the Internet instead?” 

“Good idea. I’m sure some Yelper’s written a synagogue review.” Dinah looked pleased with herself for coming up with that one. “Anyway, I bet Rabbi Fleischer’s already pissed at us for getting married in Ireland instead of here.” 

“Freddy still hasn’t gotten over that,” Theo said. “We need to take him sometime, you know, make it up to him. He would love meeting your parents, Boaz.” 

“Ooh, yeah,” said Dinah, “Abby would pick him up and never put him down.” 

Benny checked his watch, then looked out the window. Seven-thirty and the sky had lightened plenty. Chava and Bram were probably wondering where he was. “I should go,” he said. “I’ve got news to tell everyone at home.” He shook his finger at Boaz. “Bo, do _not_ forget to ring Ma.” 

“I won’t forget,” Boaz singsonged as he rolled his eyes. “A’right, Ben, tell ‘em we say hi. It’s fine if they want to visit.” 

“Totally,” Dinah agreed. “Bring them by if you can. I’d love to show Chava what my eggs can produce.” 

Benny gave them all a good-bye wave. “Will do,” he said. “Love all o’you, and talk to ye later.” 

When he got home, the lights out front were still on, so Chava hadn’t touched the switch. Good; he could do that for her later. Anything to help her not compromise her principles. “I’m home,” he called as he opened the front door. “Chava? Bram?” 

“In the kitchen!” Chava called back. “So what is it?” 

Benny went to join them and found both his cousin and his fiancée at the kitchen table, cups of tea in front of them. Good for Bram, being considerate. If it were him, Benny suspected he’d still be in bed. “We’ve got a nephew,” he said. Chava grinned, and Bram gave him a double thumbs up. “Gregory Vincent, called Greggy, not sure how many pounds and ounces ‘cause I didn’t ask.” 

“ _Yesh l’kha temonot?_ ” Bram asked. 

“Oh, I completely forgot,” said Benny, and hit his forehead with his palm. “Sorry, Bram. They said we can visit, though. I’ll bring all of us and we can take photos then.” He sat down next to Chava and kissed her cheek. “I didn’t have to ask Dee about the news, by the way.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, and wait until you hear this.” Benny grinned. “Theo went mental about it. It was hysterical. Have I ever got a story for you!” He touched the cup of still-warm tea, put his elbows up on the table, and settled in to tell it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary  
>  _Shomer [Shabbat]_ : a practice by some observant Jews in which as little work is done on the Sabbath/Shabbat as possible, including keeping all lights and electrical devices off. This varies from person to person.  
>  _Mohel_ : a man who performs circumcisions  
>  _Yesh l'kha temonot_ : do you have photographs? (Hebrew) 
> 
> Unfortunately, 'intactivists' do exist, and they're pretty much exactly as Bill and Theo described them. 
> 
> I can be found, as always, at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr. Comments, kudos, likes, reblogs, lobbing of fireworks - I love them all and eagerly respond.


	25. That Spoil the Vines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo's behavior worries one person, but not because he cares about him or anything. Who told you he cares?

While he supposed that if you twisted his arm, he could find some circumstances that were technically worse, there was very little that Randall wanted to do _less_ than have Theodor Derensky guest-lecture one of his classes. The sad truth of it was that, like everyone else at this godforsaken university, his students liked Derensky better and the attendance today would probably reflect that. 

“If more students don’t sign up for your summer classes, we’ll have to cut them next year,” Dr. Ventura had said at the interdepartmental staff meeting – history, religion, sociology, and anthropology – that had taken place a couple of weeks after registration opened up for the summer. To her credit, she’d looked just as apologetic as she said she was when she told him that. “Sorry, Randall. I know you and Theo have your differences, but if this’ll make more kids sign up, he’s helping you from now on.” 

He’d spent a very sour evening after that reflecting on the fact that philosophy, Classics, English, and the foreign-language department were very lucky to be assigned different funding pools in the cesspit that was Wentworth University’s endowment, but as Alice had rightly pointed out, he needed the money. He also needed to keep his tenure, the realization of which had led him to this horrible June day that he hoped he could block out after it was over. 

Stupid Derensky. Randall had once entertained the idea that if the students knew about their ongoing war, they might stop liking the guy so much, but he wasn’t naïve enough to think that he wouldn’t be the target of their dislike. Better to just let Derensky teach today’s class and get it over with. 

With that decision made, Randall leaned back in his office chair and used the ponytail holder on his wrist to gather his hair back. “Ow,” he said as his elbow hit the wall, and not for the first time, wondered when he was finally going to gain some weight so he could stop bruising himself up on every existing hard surface. Too bad the only people who could understand his pain were Alice, who had had the dubious good fortune of being born skinny herself, and Luukas, who after his most recent growth spurt was looking like he’d end up a scarecrow. 

He locked up his office and started down the mostly-empty halls to the nearby seminar room where today’s class met. Historical Applications of the Bible had a spotty turn-out even during the school year, with most of the students dedicated and extremely busy juniors and seniors. Just his luck that this was the class Derensky got to rub his grubby, obsessive paws all over. “Hi, Danielle,” he said to a passing sociology professor. “Going to teach?” 

“Not today, thank God,” she said. “It’s too hot to be civil. I’d just end up telling the kids that their whole textbook is wrong.” 

The weather app on his phone had reported nearly ninety-degree temperatures this morning, and it had just gotten worse from there. Randall didn’t know how construction workers and park rangers did it. “I hear you,” he said. “Derensky’s subbing in for my class today. I’m just watching.” 

“Lucky,” she said. Randall felt his hackles come up, but instead of singing Derensky’s praises (she was young enough that he could probably snooker her), she said, “I’d love it if someone took my classes for a day. Did he say you have to watch him?” 

“No, it’s my decision,” he said. “I want to see what he’s telling the students.” 

Danielle shrugged, which gave her another point in Randall’s eyes. She was young, having just joined the department a year or two ago after doing her own PhD there, and the ex-students who’d just graduated from the frantic ‘publish or perish’ mentality didn’t tend to be so easygoing when they encountered the same thing at work. “Fair enough,” she said. “Sorry to talk and dash, but I have a paper to work on.” 

“That’s fair, too,” said Randall. “Try to stay out of the heat. It’s not safe out there.” 

“You, too,” she said, and walked on. 

Despite the window-unit air conditioners that tended to make classrooms absolutely glacial, the building was still sticky, something that didn’t improve Randall’s mood as he approached the classroom. Class didn’t start for another half an hour, which he supposed would give him more than enough time to metaphorically cool down. He tried the doorknob, found it unlocked, and went in only to see Derensky already there at the podium. So much for improving his mood. “You’re early.” 

Derensky flicked his gaze up at him. “Randy,” he said conversationally. “I found a few things I need to correct. What are _you_ doing here so early?” 

“No reason,” Randall said. No matter how many times he’d told Derensky not to call him Randy, the man persisted in using the nickname. He knew damn well that Derensky was calling him Morningwood behind his back as well as to his face, too. Well, Randall could give back as good as he got, and in certain circles, he was known to refer to Derensky as ‘the prick.’ 

Scowling at the inset monitor, Derensky gripped the sides of the podium and growled. Randall had been growled at often enough to know that this one wasn’t directed at him. “Fuckin’ presentation,” he said. “I worked on it all week.” 

“Shouldn’t that make it _good?_ ” Randall asked. This level of perfectionism was creepy even for Derensky. 

“Should, but it didn’t.” Derensky leaned forward and rested his head in his hands, supported by his elbows on the podium. “Randy, do me a favor and keep your mouth shut for a while. I have to make sure this is presentable.” 

It was a reasonable request. Anyway, as of the past few months, Randall was used to dealing with a son in the beginning throes of puberty (which was manifesting in Luukas as nosebleeds, an oily face, and a lot of yelling) and he could handle Derensky on whatever kind of bender this was. He took out his phone, pulled up the browser, and lost himself in some written relaxation meditations. 

Randall had just started to get good and relaxed when the sound of footsteps and chatter signaled that the students were arriving. He quickly relocated to the back of the room. It looked like space would be tight; just as he’d suspected – and Dr. Ventura undoubtedly had, too – his students had brought along some friends. Once again, stupid Derensky. He’d never get tired of saying that in his own head, where no one could give him _that_ look. 

He would have thought that Derensky would be alert and happy to see the students, like he’d been in the classes Randall had observed before when he was feeling jealous. Instead, Derensky leaned over the podium until the last possible moment, then stood up and surveyed the class. “Hi,” he said, with none of his usual classroom enthusiasm. “It’s good to see everyone today. I’m assuming all of you read the assigned readings?” Multiple nods. “Good. Let’s get started.” 

The PowerPoint he pulled up, brightly-colored and proclaiming “Exodus: The Dubious Evidence” in a thick serif font, was one hell of a lot more animated than his voice. Maybe that was where his good mood had gone. Randall had to admit that he’d lost sleep plenty of times over papers or classes that he didn’t think he’d gotten just right. “We’ll start with the Hoffmeier reading on Joseph,” he said, and clicked to the first slide. “First of all, he’s treated as a historical figure in the Bible, but his story ends with him going to Egypt and staying there as a well-respected foreign institution. If he had actually lived there, the Egyptians would undoubtedly have written it down.” 

Briskly, methodically, with an expression that barely softened no matter the aspect of the subject he was talking about at the moment (and the exploits of the pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty could get pretty damn funny), Derensky plowed on through his lecture. And it was indeed a lecture; the whole building knew that the daily influx of students meant Derensky ran his lectures like seminars. Now he was ignoring one upraised hand after another in favor of staring at the monitor. 

Whatever had caused this, Randall didn’t like it, and he was getting bored. That was a rarity here; even when he couldn’t find anything to grade or write, someone down the hall would always have a new article to argue about. Boredom had no place in the humanities department. But here it was, and maybe – he glanced at Derensky. Yes, it would definitely go unnoticed if he took out his phone under the table. Some of the students were already squirming, and if Derensky hadn’t called them out, then Randall could look at Buzzfeed. 

Randall was mid-article on the top twenty things to do with watermelon, some of them very artistic, when one of his own advisees evidently decided that he’d had enough of being talked at. “Hey,” he said, hand up, and said louder when that didn’t get Derensky’s attention, “ _Hey!_ ” 

Derensky’s index finger stopped mid-emphasis-point. “What?” Now his whole body was stiff – no, that wasn’t right. He was practically vibrating in place. What was so important about some article by Nadav Na’aman that Derensky had to get back to talking about it so badly? 

Jon put his hand down and stood up from his chair. “You’re not talking about any of the evidence for the Exodus,” he said. Randall heard some murmurs of agreement from the assembled students, and the heads in front of him nodded. 

“That’s because there isn’t any,” Derensky snapped. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” He flipped back two slides. “Na’aman doesn’t talk about any evidence that the Exodus took place within Egypt itself, just that he thinks it was inside the Egyptian territory in Canaan. That’s completely out of the question if we take the landmarks mentioned in the Bible at face value.” Mercifully, he didn’t ask if Jon had even been paying attention, though he clearly wanted to. Randall would have considered the same thing in his position, though not quite so rudely. 

“Yeah, and what about Waltke?” Jon crossed his arms. “You didn’t even go over anything from him, and he cited one of the groundbreaking archaeologists in Israel. Why wasn’t that in the reading?” 

Derensky ground his teeth. “Don’t try that on me, kid,” he said. “You want something, then be respectful about it. By the way, Waltke? 1972 Waltke? He cited Kenyon, but so have a lot of other people since then. Most of them haven’t fucked up the evidence with rudimentary crap.” 

A couple of students flinched. Randall put his phone down. “Derensky,” he said quietly, a warning. He could get way louder if he had to. 

Jon snorted and got up, his position screaming defiance and disgust. “I’m going to the bathroom,” he said, and left, practically stomping. Now that really _was_ disrespectful, and Randall would be having words with him the next time they met. Every teacher was allowed to have off days, even if he was weird about it. 

“ _Hey!_ ” Derensky slammed his hand down on the podium. “Name and major, you –!” He shouted the words after Jon, but cut off the end of whatever he was about to say, nearly biting off the sentence. Randall could only guess it was some kind of swear word he’d never heard before, and no matter what it was, every single hair on his body was standing on end. 

The silence in the classroom could’ve deafened a bat. Up at the front, Derensky shook in place, arms wrapped around himself. Randall couldn’t tell if the silence was from fear or from simple confusion; personally, he was probably experiencing a healthy mixture of both, but any psychologist would tell you that you couldn’t be objective about your own emotions. “Let’s keep going,” he finally said. His voice rang off the walls, despite the horrible acoustics – hey, look who was growing a commanding voice after all. He’d have to remember that. “Tempers are high, so let’s just try to move on.” 

“Right,” said Derensky. It came out rough, like the sentence was scraping his throat. “Yes. I’m sorry, guys. Time to keep going.” 

Randall kept his phone in his pocket for the rest of the session, but Derensky calmed down significant after that, though he definitely wasn’t up to his usual caliber of teaching (damn his own head for making him think that of his worst enemy, too). Students began to raise their hands after a few minutes, and this time, he called on them; a discussion began between two factions about whether or not the Egyptian occupation would have led to forced adoption of Egyptian styles like the later Greek and Roman invasions did, and things slowly went back to some kind of normal. 

When the class had finished – five minutes early, and still with all the syllabus stuff that Randall would have gone through himself, something he had to take his hat off to Derensky for – the students left with a much more subdued attitude than they displayed at the end of Randall’s usual classes. Derensky didn’t stick around, either, but after making sure he’d turned off the lights (electricity wasn’t cheap), Randall followed him at a run. “Hey!” he called after him. Derensky didn’t turn around; in fact, he walked faster. “Derensky, I need to talk to you.” 

“Not your business,” Derensky said over his shoulder, but he did slow down. “Is it urgent?” They’d reached the area of the history offices, and he stopped in front of the door to his own. 

“You bet it’s urgent.” Randall cut in front of him so he couldn’t barricade himself in his locked office; he knew how Derensky worked after all this time, and sure enough, his hand was moving toward the door. “Do you want to tell me,” he began, clipped as his words came out through tight lips, “what the absolute hell went on in there?” 

Derensky lowered his eyebrows and glared. “You saw what happened. I don’t have to explain it to you.” 

Randall poked a finger into the center of his chest. It was cliché, but he could get his point across better with a cliché at a time like this. “Work out whatever issues you have on your own time,” he said, “but don’t you dare pull name, rank, and serial number with my students. This is a university, not a boot camp.” 

Wide-eyed and slightly open-mouthed, Derensky staggered back a couple of steps. What, had he been expecting no resistance whatsoever? “He goaded me into it,” he said. “Randy, I – I apologized, _God_ …” He blinked. “I barely even remember.” 

“Then let me fill you in,” Randall said, and leaned against the wall on one hand. “You went off on a student. He deserved a dressing-down, I’ll give you that.” Derensky’s face didn’t change, nor did his position, hunched over like a cornered animal. “But there were much better ways to do that. You’d better hope none of them get you written up, because I don’t know if anyone’s career could handle that.” Why was he expending his hard-earned time to help Derensky, anyway? They’d hated each other for so long that anyone new to leading meetings got debriefed on why they weren’t allowed to sit next to each other. Maybe it was schadenfreude from the way Derensky had made a pathetic ass of himself. 

Derensky’s face hardened, and he pushed past Randall, shoving his key in the door lock and twisting it open – Randall pulled his wrist away just in time, but damned if he was going to let Derensky hide in there, so he pushed back and followed him in. “Get _out_ of here,” Derensky growled. That voice was much scarier in the dark than Randall would have expected. 

“No.” Randall folded his arms. “What the hell is going on in your head, Derensky? You’re about to self-destruct!” 

Their mutual heavy breathing was the only sound that kept the ambience in the room out of awkward silence territory. “Get out of my office, Dr. Greenwood,” said Derensky in the coldest voice Randall had ever heard come out of his mouth, “and don’t come back.” 

Christ, was he about to get violent? Randall wouldn’t put money on it, but he also didn’t want to stick around long enough to get punched in the stomach. “Fuck you, too,” he said, and turned on his heel, but he didn’t get far after he went over the threshold and Derensky slammed the door. A few yards away, his legs failed on him and he leaned against the wall, sliding down to sit cross-legged on the floor. 

He’d read that article. Everyone here had, especially after it got Derensky and his nephews attacked and nearly killed after soccer practice or something. Besides all the horrors his parents had gone through, Derensky had definitely mentioned something about his father’s mental illness. Randall thought he remembered Alzheimer’s, and he definitely remembered reading about Derensky’s father’s PTSD. That couldn’t transmit through the generations, he was pretty sure, but Alzheimer’s… _I can’t remember_ , Derensky had said. Could that be it? Was he in the early stages of Alzheimer’s? 

But other stuff could cause memory loss, and what Derensky had done reminded Randall a lot more of some kind of psychosis than generalized dementia. He wasn’t being forgetful, just completely weird. Whatever it was, Dr. Ventura would definitely hear about what happened today, and so would university counseling, though Randall wasn’t sure how much information it was okay to divulge there. Maybe doctor-patient confidentiality went both ways when you weren’t actually the patient, and there was no guarantee Derensky would even go see them. 

Randall sighed, leaned his head against the wall, and closed his eyes. They abruptly popped open when the sound of a university land-line phone ringing came through the cinderblock. That was definitely coming from Derensky’s office. “Huh,” he muttered aloud, and moved towards the door in a half-scoot, half-crawl to minimize any tapping of his shoes that might give him away (even though he was aware that he would look ridiculous to anyone passing by; some things were more important). 

Derensky’s voice was muffled, but it had never been terribly quiet to begin with, so Randall could make out what he was saying with some degree of certainty. “ – understands me like you,” Derensky said. Okay, so he was talking to Bill; that was good. “Wish you were here, Drake. The department’s all idiots. You’d put some life in.” 

Who the hell was _Drake_ , and why did he have Derensky’s office number? If Derensky was cheating on Bill, Randall was going to kick his ass; he had to slap his hand over his mouth to keep himself from saying just that, chance of discovery be damned. No, he had to be rational about this. Cheating might be the first thing that popped into his head, but he couldn’t lead with it. That would be irrational. 

“Yeah, no, I know it’s important,” Derensky said, and paused. “You know I can’t quit. I like what I do. Are you – Drake. What are you trying to say?” Another pause. “God, that’s tempting.” 

_Some kind of academic thing_ , Randall thought. Someone definitely wanted to poach Derensky for some project. Good for him, but he had to wonder if it wasn’t something shady. That would explain a lot of Derensky’s mood swings, knowing he could be undercutting his community and trying to repress the knowledge. 

At least he wasn’t cheating on Bill. Come to think of it, Randall wasn’t sure Derensky was even capable of cheating on Bill. Derensky had been open about the fact that he was gay – Massachusetts was probably one of the best places to do that – but as far as talking about actual partners, Randall had thought of him as something like functionally asexual until Bill came along and his picture showed up on Derensky’s desk next to the one of his nephews. 

“Tell me what you’re – hold on.” Derensky’s cell-phone ringtone began to shriek. The squealing guitar had almost made Randall wet himself the first time he heard it, and he would still swear Derensky was gleeful at the sight. “I’m getting another call. Try me again after my class on Thursday.” Pause. “I’ll think about it. Talk to you later.” 

The ringing stopped, but the ringing in Randall’s ears from its absence didn’t. He stuck a finger in each one and moved it around a little. “Hello?” Derensky said, and then at top volume, “ _What_ happened?” 

Randall got to his feet and pressed his ear harder against the wall. “Oh my _God_ ,” Derensky said weakly, followed by a thump that sounded like his butt had landed hard in his chair. “Tell me he’s okay.” 

With Derensky’s new nephew, there were way too many people that ‘he’ could be, but whoever he was, he was obviously hurt. Randall inched closer to the door. “Okay,” said Derensky. “Okay. Which one?” Pause. “How many places?” Another pause. When he spoke again, his voice shook. “I’ll be right over. Tell him I love him so much.” 

The call ended with a beep, and after a few seconds, it was followed by a scream of such pain that Randall put his hands over his ears. Not even when Luukas cut his hand on the vegetable peeler when he was five had he heard a scream like that. “Derensky!” He pounded on the door with both fists. “Open up! Are you okay?” Of course he wasn’t okay, but that was a thing you said at times like this. “Theo?” 

Derensky said nothing. One, two, five minutes passed (Randall kept track on his phone), and he was on the verge of getting someone in maintenance to forcibly open the door – it was silent if you cut your wrists, wasn’t it? – when it abruptly opened. Derensky stared at Randall, red-eyed, tears pouring down his already-wet face. “What?” 

Randall’s insides unknotted in relief. It was better than ‘get out and don’t come back,’ that was for sure. “I heard you scream,” he said, and conveniently left out the part where he’d been listening in. Derensky’s scream was loud enough that it could probably have plausibly been heard elsewhere on the second floor. “What’s going on?” 

Derensky leaned forward and hit his head hard on the door frame, then started to cry again – not silently this time, but with huge hiccupping sobs. “ _Freddy_ ,” he said. “He g-got hurt.” 

“Jeez,” Randall said. He came up behind Derensky and rubbed his heaving back. What else could he do? He would have been just as much of a mess if it was Luukas and he had the bad fortune to be at work when he heard the news. Being right next to Luukas when he cut himself, he’d had to be calm for him, but he’d definitely gone to pieces all over Alice later. “Will he be okay?” 

A few minutes later, Derensky had enough control of himself to be able to answer. “In the hospital,” he rasped. “Broke his leg.” 

‘How many places’ – of course. “That’s awful,” Randall soothed. He changed the motion of his hand to circles on Derensky’s back with a firm palm, trying to calm him down enough to get more words out of him. He could already tell that it would be like pulling teeth. “But he’ll be okay. They can treat a broken leg so easily.” 

“He fell at camp,” Derensky said into the wall. “I should’ve been there.” 

“At camp?” said Randall. “That makes no sense. Kids aren’t supposed to have their parents with them at camp.” 

Derensky hiccupped. “No, the _hospital_ ,” he said. “When he got hurt, I should’ve been there.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Randall told him. Damn, that wasn’t helpful at all, was it? “Sorry. I mean, they called you as soon as they could, right? You’re going over there as soon as…” he let the end of the sentence trail off as the thought occurred to him that Derensky was in absolutely no shape to drive right now. He would undoubtedly crash into the first streetlight that appeared, and while ridding the department (and himself) of the guy would improve his general mood, he didn’t have the heart to let that happen to another human being. “I’ll drive you over there as soon as possible.” 

That got Derensky’s attention. He spun around and narrowed his eyes at Randall, like he wasn’t sure if that was a promise or a threat. “You hate me.” 

True, but there were bigger things at stake here, just like when the kid in this particular situation found out that that horrific cousin of Derensky’s was plotting at his and Bill’s wedding. “So what?” Randall asked. “That doesn’t mean I want you to die on the way to the hospital. It has to count for something that I was one of your wedding guests.” 

Derensky gave a reluctant shrug, barely a motion at all. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sitting in the back, though.” 

“Far be it from me to call you weird,” Randall said, and returned the shrug. He took Derensky’s arm and internally winced at how thick and pronounced the muscles were. If Derensky decided to get violent, which he still doubted would happen, Randall was sure he would be dead meat within minutes. Going to the gym every so often might not be a bad idea. “I’m parked in Lot Twelve. Follow me.” 

Derensky silently did as he was told, sticking to Randall as closely as a shadow while Randall found his keys, left the building, and unlocked his car in the nearby lot. Faculty parking spots were one of the only perks of academia, he’d found. “You know, I never said you have to keep your mouth shut,” he said, and opened the back-seat door for Derensky. “Feel free to let it out.” 

“Don’t really feel like talking,” said Derensky quietly, sliding in. “It hurts.” 

“Literally or figuratively?” Randall started the engine. 

In the rearview mirror, he saw Derensky raise his eyebrows and blink at him. “Figuratively. Freddy’s in the fucking _hospital_.” 

“You screamed pretty loudly,” Randall pointed out. “It could have been literal. Which hospital?” 

Derensky buckled himself in. “McLean.” 

“Okay.” 

On the way, Randall tried turning on the radio, switching channels, turning _up_ the radio, and singing along in his quite-frankly-terrible singing voice, but nothing roused Derensky from his funk. Finally, in desperation, he tried talking to fill the silence. “Luukas has had to go to the hospital a couple of times,” he said, “so I know how you feel.” 

That got Derensky to lift his head, at least. “Really?” 

“Yep. He cut himself on the hand when he was five. Blood all over the place.” He switched lanes for the next exit. “I was such a mess after they got him patched up. I think I ruined one of Alice’s shirts by crying on it.” 

“Oh.” Derensky shifted in his seat and sat up a bit straight. “I can’t really imagine you crying.” 

“I couldn’t imagine _you_ crying until today,” Randall said, “so here we are.” 

Derensky opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, “I should’ve been there for him, Randy. You were there when your kid got hurt.” 

They’d already had this conversation, and Randall suspected that if he tried to talk Derensky out of this self-loathing again, they’d end up going in circles. “So I was,” he said. “So are you now.” They lapsed into silence again after that, but this time, Randall didn’t try anything with the radio. 

Derensky just about bolted out of the car when Randall pulled into the hospital and parked by the emergency entrance. “Hey!” Randall called after him, scrambling from his seat and locking up before running after him. “He’s not going anywhere. Slow down.” 

“Sorry.” Derensky stopped before Randall did, so that for just a second, Randall’s mind falsely registered that he was about to run backwards. “He – he isn’t gonna hate me for this, right?” he asked when Randall caught up with him. 

“He probably won’t even remember,” Randall answered. “So you were there maybe an hour after he was, big deal. He’ll just remember that you were there.” Why was Derensky blaming himself for the fact that he had a job? No, maybe he wasn’t blaming himself; this could have just been new-parent panic. Going by how long they’d had Freddy, it was like he was freaking out over a two-year-old, which was much more logical. 

Once they were inside and Derensky told the information desk where they needed to go – much less shakily than he’d spoken before, no less – they were directed to a little room off the main emergency area, some distance away from the desk. “Uncle Theo!” Freddy shouted from his seat on the bed as soon as Derensky opened the door. “Uncle Bill said I broke my leg!” 

“I know, Freddo. I know. I came as soon as I could.” Derensky swooped down and hugged Freddy hard. He was, however, visibly careful of the broken leg, which someone had immobilized with two plastic splints and placed on a pile of pillows. “Have you had your X-rays yet?” 

“Only just now,” said Bill, “and we’ll have to wait on those a while. They’ve got some back-up and he’s not considered an emergent case.” He got up from his chair and went to stand next to Derensky, winding an arm around his back. “Was I interrupting anything when I called?” 

Derensky squeezed him back. “Not really,” he said, though his voice was thick. “I just finished doing some teaching. Subbed in for Randy here.” 

“Randy?” Bill repeated, then looked around and met Randall’s eye. “Randall! What are you doing here?” 

“It wouldn’t have been safe for your husband to drive himself here after he got your call,” Randall said. It was always so awkward referring to Derensky when he talked to Bill; ‘Derensky’ was a little offensive, going by the look in Bill’s eyes when he said it, and he just couldn’t bring himself to call the man ‘Theo.’ He struck a balance with either ‘your husband’ or, on rare occasions, ‘Theodor.’ It was probably a good thing that conversations with Bill about Derensky were rare themselves. 

“He did me a favor,” Derensky agreed. “It was nice of him. Randy, do you want to sit down? Sorry you’re stuck here.” 

It really was amazing how much calmer Derensky had gotten in Freddy’s presence. The presence of your kid in a stressful situation involving the kid really did wonders for one’s ability to be strong, it seemed; Randall would have to ask some more colleagues with kids about their experiences to get a larger sample size. “It’s no problem,” he said. “Tell me if there’s anything I can do.” 

“I cried loads,” Freddy broke in. “I fell out of a tree and it really hurt.” 

“What were you doing in a tree, buddy?” Derensky asked. “That wasn’t a very good place for you to be.” 

“You rhymed, Uncle Theo,” said Freddy. “We were having free time and I wanted to do some lanyards at the arts and crafts place, and this boy said he dared me to go up in the tree, and he was really big, so I went up in it. Then I fell out. The tree was _very_ slippery.” 

Derensky covered his face with one hand. “Can I ask why you took that little SOB up on that dare instead of going to the arts and crafts area?” 

Bill shot Derensky a dirty look, but Freddy only cocked his head and said, “But he wasn’t crying, Uncle. He’s not a sob.” 

“It means something else,” Derensky said. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” 

“Okay.” Freddy leaned back on the one pillow that came with the crappy emergency-room bed; they probably saved the good pillows for inpatients. “He was really big, Uncle. I had to do it, else he was gonna hit me. I think he would’ve hit me. He didn’t say he was gonna do it.” He frowned, chewing on his lower lip. “Does he have to say he’ll hit me before he hits me?” 

“No.” Derensky folded his arms and shared a brief glance with Bill, who nodded. “Do I need to talk to this kid’s parents? No one should be making you think they’ll hit you. And yes, it counts as a threat even if he doesn’t actually say it.” 

Freddy pursed his lips, folding his arms just like Derensky. It was truly frightening how alike they looked. If Randall didn’t know better regarding how very gay Derensky was, he would have said that the man had a one-night stand with some woman seven or eight years ago and Freddy was the result. Raised in some other person’s house for his first five years, of course, because no child of Derensky’s weird seed would ever be that quiet if he’d grown up with his father. “He didn’t _say_ it.” 

Derensky’s position didn’t change, but something about him did. It was as if he was about to snap, winding himself tighter and tighter. “Do you like stories, Freddy?” Randall asked, leaning over Freddy to block Derensky’s view of him, or maybe Freddy’s view of Derensky. Freddy didn’t seem scared of his uncle, at least. “I have some I can tell you while you wait for your X-rays.” 

At once, Freddy sucked in his cheeks. “Uncle tells really good stories,” he said. “Are your stories really good?” 

Derensky snorted behind him, but caught himself and said “Freddy, be nice.” Would wonders never cease? Scolding his kid, and with a real note of warning in his voice, too. No, Randall knew he was probably just being unfair. He’d never seen evidence that Derensky was an unfit parent; if he had, he’d have had CPS on Derensky’s ass so fast that he wouldn’t know what hit him. 

“Mine are good,” he said. “Do you want to hear a real one? It happened to my friend.” 

“Oh!” Freddy perked up right away. “Like alligators in the sewers? That happens to everyone’s friend. Uncle Bill says it’s a Country Crock. Right, Uncle Bill?” 

Bill pinched his nose and let out an extremely undignified and odd-sounding noise. “I say it’s a crock of something else entirely,” he said. “That’s a good way to put it.” 

“It’s not alligators in the sewers,” Randall said, “but it’s close.” There couldn’t possibly be any harm in telling this story to Freddy, he reasoned. Bard would never have any opportunity to hear of it and therefore kick Randall’s ass. Bard was shorter than he was and a _chemist_ to boot, but he had some serious muscle on him. “It does involve a toilet.” 

“Is it a stinky toilet?” Freddy rolled over onto his side, or tried to – he didn’t even get halfway there before he interrupted himself with a cry of pain. “Leg hurts!” He balled his hands into fists and held them in front of his face. “Ow!” 

Derensky and Bill both pushed Randall aside at once, jabbering words of comfort at Freddy so fast that Randall couldn’t make out anything coherent between the two of them as they took Freddy in a hug. A frantic “Does it hurt, love?” from Bill was the first sentence that Randall understood, a few seconds into the group hug. 

“Yeah,” said Freddy shakily, though Randall couldn’t tell if the vocal effect was from pain or from distortion due to his position buried under a pile of uncles. “I hurt it again. Do I get Aleve now?” 

“Aleve’s not for broken legs, Freddy.” Bill gently pulled away and put a comforting hand on Freddy’s cheek. “I don’t think it would help very much. Do you want me to go get you a cup of water?” 

Freddy nodded. “Yes, please. I want to hear a story, too.” He reached out and grabbed Randall’s hand, and Randall couldn’t help smiling. It would be nice for that entire group of dysfunctional friends that Derensky’s family hung around with if Freddy turned out to be just as sweet when he grew up as he was now. “Can I hear it, Randy? Please?” 

If he would stop calling Randall ‘Randy’, that would be just peachy, but one couldn’t have everything. Maybe a sunny personality was the best Randall could hope for. “Sure can. Unless – Bill, do you want me to go get water for him?” This was a hospital room, not story hour at the library. He was probably intruding, anyway. 

“No, it’s all right,” said Bill. “Keep him distracted, that’s the ticket. I’ll be back in a moment.” He turned on his heel and exited the room; the door closed with a click that somehow seemed to imply a kind of finality. 

Randall sighed and settled onto the one free area of Freddy’s bed. “Do you still want to hear the story?” Freddy nodded. “Okay. I have this friend who works in the chemistry department, and he’s got three kids. He doesn’t always know what to do with them.” 

“Uncle Theo and Uncle Bill don’t know what to do with me,” Freddy said. “Auntie Dee said so.” 

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Randall agreed. “I have a son, so I’ve probably screwed up with raising him a few times, too.” 

“What’s his name?” Freddy asked. 

“Luukas, but that’s not part of the story.” Where was he? “Right, right, Bard and his kids. Bard’s wife Susanne died a few years ago and he and his kids were really depressed about it. Let’s see, I think his oldest daughter was maybe…eleven?” All three of them grew up so fast that he had a hard time keeping up with their ages, since he rarely got to spend time with them. Bard was more of a work friend than a social friend, but their families sometimes had dinner together. “Oh, no,” he said, noticing the look on Derensky’s face for the first time. It was just short of murderous. “Did I upset you? His wife wasn’t, uh, hurting when she died.” 

Freddy looked from Derensky to Randall and contemplated the ceiling for a few moments. “Nuh-uh,” he said. “You can talk about dead people in a hospital. There are dead people and sick people here.” 

“Let’s not think about dead people, huh, Freddo?” Derensky said. 

“Your uncle’s right,” said Randall. “Bard wasn’t too happy about it, either. He decided to get his kids some pets a few months after their mom died, but he didn’t know how to handle pets. Do you want to guess what kind of pets he got them?” Stories always worked better when they were interactive. His own dad had told him one when Randall burst his appendix as a kid, and from what he remembered – apart from the screaming – it had worked pretty well. 

Freddy stuck a finger in his mouth and sucked on it. “Kitties?” he guessed. “We’ve got kitties. They’re mostly good, except when they’re naughty.” 

“No, cats are too much work,” Randall told him. “Hmm. Maybe this is a hard one. He got them goldfish for their pets.” 

“I like to eat goldfish,” Freddy said. “They’re made out of cheese. Kosher eats them when Dwight’s not home.” 

This, he was _definitely_ too out of the loop to understand. “Who’s Kosher?” Randall said, turning to Derensky. 

“Our friends’ potbellied pig,” Derensky said. “Attempted cannibal. He was a present from my cousin Dane. Noah tries to let him eat whatever he wants, Dwight plays the heavy.” 

Good enough. “Cannibal?” Randall smiled at Freddy. “Did that pig try to eat bacon?” 

“Bacon pizza,” said Freddy, nodding. “It’s a TJ Special. That means Terrible Jew. Uncle Theo invented it.” 

“There’s pretty much every kind of meat on it,” Derensky interjected, “but close. Sorry, Randy. Keep going.” 

Randall tamped down the urge to give Derensky the finger, the sight of which Freddy would undoubtedly report to every concerned adult in the vicinity if he remembered it after the inevitable shot of painkillers. “No, these are real fish,” he said. “They’re little gold…wait a second, I can show you.” He took his phone out of his pocket and, one Google search later, had multiple photos of goldfish for Freddy’s viewing pleasure. “See? These are what I’m talking about.” 

“Oh.” Freddy touched the screen with the finger that had been in his mouth, something Randall declined to comment on. He could always wash it off with an alcohol swab later. “They’re pretty. I like the one with the black spot.” 

“Mm,” Randall said, “yeah, that one _is_ pretty.” He stowed his phone back in his pocket and settled his hands in his lap. “Bard got three of those for his kids, one for each of them. Now, goldfish don’t live very long.” Cripes, was this whole story about death? He should have thought farther ahead. “Mostly because people don’t know how to take good care of them. His son’s fish died after a few weeks and they went to have a funeral for him in the bathroom.” 

“But you have funerals at the graveyard,” Freddy said. “You’ve got to tell the government when someone dies, else they come and make you pay money.” 

Whatever this kid was reading, Randall wanted to make it part of the standard school curriculum, because maybe then he’d get fewer professors’ children asking him why they couldn’t unlock the bathroom door. His gaze slid over to Derensky, but Derensky only shrugged. “Don’t look at me,” he said. “He’s probably been talking to Dwight.” 

“Dwight’s the police officer?” Randall asked, and got a nod. “Makes sense. Okay, Freddy, here’s something you might not know. Fish funerals are in the bathroom because you flush them down the toilet instead of burying them.” 

Freddy wrinkled his nose. “Ew! Why do you flush a fishie? They didn’t do anything to you!” 

“It’s because they’re tiny,” Randall said. “You can’t bury them because it’d be way too expensive for that piece of land.” He’d forgotten how much fun it was to talk to six-year-olds, or was Freddy seven? Either way, this wasn’t the worst conversation he’d had this week. 

With a sly, conspiratorial look, Freddy leaned forward and gestured for Randall to come closer. Randall obliged, and Freddy said in his ear, “If you don’t pay the money for a dead person, they make you work for them and you can _die_ sometimes.” 

Randall whipped his head around to stare at Derensky. “I’m _sure_ he didn’t learn that from a police officer,” he said. 

“No,” Freddy said, “I learned it from Cousin Phil. He’s got to read a book for summer reading. It’s called The Grapes of Rap. There’s a dead grandma and a dead grandpa, and they take the dead grandma to California so they don’t have to pay for a funeral, only they lie and say she’s not dead, she’s just sick.” 

“ _Whuh_ ,” Derensky said. Randall concurred. “The Grapes of Wrath, you mean? That’s a pretty grown-up book. Phil wasn’t reading it to you, was he?” 

“Nuh-uh, just talked about it.” Freddy put his finger back in his mouth and spoke around it, his voice muffled. “There’s a girl who has a baby, only it dies and she gives her milk to an old man ‘cause he doesn’t have any food.” 

Okay, now the high-school memories were coming back. If Randall recalled correctly, that scene had gotten the book banned by prudes all over the country for years. As if breast-feeding was such a crime. In fact, he thought he remembered his eleventh-grade English teacher lecturing the class about how the scene was supposed to be reminiscent of the literary Christ figure. Everyone was a damn Christ figure these days; in his humble opinion, the image had been thoroughly cheapened. 

Derensky loudly cleared his throat. “Why don’t we go on with the story?” he said. “I’ll have a talk with your cousin Phil about not telling you all the grown-up stuff in his summer reading.” 

“He’s reading ‘Life of Pi,’ too,” said Freddy. “I don’t think it’s about pies, but it’s got dirty words.” 

“Your uncle’s right,” Randall cut in before Freddy could say anything else to further incriminate himself, or his cousins. “I should keep going with the story. Anyhow, Bard and his kids were in the bathroom to give the fish a toilet funeral, and what do you think happened when they dropped it in and flushed?” 

“What’s the fishie’s name?” Freddy asked around his finger. 

Randall squeezed his eyes shut. All right, this was a few years ago, when the kids were still obsessed with Frozen, so – “Hans. The fish’s name was Hans. I think that meant he was an evil fish, so maybe it was a good thing he died.” 

“What happened when they flushed?” Freddy wiggled in place, messing up his hair. “Did it blow up?” 

The ‘what’ could have been the toilet or the fish, and either way, Randall didn’t want to know why that thought had entered Freddy’s head. “No, it didn’t blow up. They flushed, and all of a sudden, a bunch of stuff came out into the toilet and they all _thought_ something exploded.” 

“Oh,” Freddy said, wide-eyed. “What was it?” 

Randall grinned. Years later, the memory of how Bard had covered his face with both hands while telling him about it over a few beers was still hysterical. “His son’s lunch. He stuffed half a sandwich, some carrots, and an apple into the toilet tank to hide it there because he didn’t want to finish. I guess he didn’t remember he did that when he found out his fish was dead.” 

Derensky snickered and Freddy started giggling. Randall did, too, because laughter was contagious and at least Derensky was partially his normal self. “That’s gross!” Freddy shouted. “Dead fish toilet soup with – with apples and carrots and a sandwich!” He dissolved into more giggles, and Randall followed his movements just to make sure he wasn’t about to hurt his leg again, but he stayed still enough that that didn’t happen. 

“Very gross,” Randall agreed. Not for nothing had Bain Baumann gotten his nickname; his German mother had convinced Bard that his name should be Bernd, but he’d earned Bain by acting like the bane of his parents’ and older sister’s existences. He even went by it at school. “And mean, too. He clogged up the toilet, so they had to call a plumber to come get the dead fish soup out of the bowl.” 

“It’s called an upper-decker when you sit on the tank and do your business in it,” Derensky said. “I got spanked when I tried that in my parents’ bathroom. Don’t ever do it to anyone else – it’s inconsiderate.” 

Then maybe Derensky shouldn’t have told Freddy about it. Randall wouldn’t pretend to understand his logic; it was convoluted at the best of times, and that was a polite way of saying so, too. “How old were you?” 

Derensky smiled crookedly. “Fourteen.” 

“Of course,” Randall said. There was something funny about the idea of Derensky’s mother taking a hulking teenage Derensky over her knee and warming his ass. Randall was never one to support corporal punishment, but he wouldn’t contest that Derensky had almost certainly deserved it that time. 

The door to the room squeaked open. “I heard laughing,” said Bill, sidling around Derensky with a foam cup of water in each hand. “What’s so funny?” 

“Randy told a story,” Freddy said. “His friend had a fishie and it died, and they flushed it, and his son put his lunch in the top of the toilet, and it made dead fish soup.” 

“Oh,” said Bill. “Lovely.” 

“What took you?” Derensky asked. “That was a long time for a cup of water.” 

Bill handed one of the cups of water to Freddy, who began to slurp at it. “Freddy, quiet down with that, love. Thank you. Theo, what happened was I found another nurse when I was going to find cups, and we talked for a while. The profession, quirks of our respective bosses, that sort of thing.” 

“Talking shop,” said Derensky. “I always do that at conferences. Other professors are the best.” He glanced at Randall. “Usually.” 

Of Derensky’s jabs, that was one of the milder ones. “Yes, Freddy enjoyed my story,” Randall said, not dignifying the pitiful insult with a response. “He doesn’t appear to be squeamish. Freddy, maybe you’re meant for a career as a marine biologist.” 

“What’s that?” Freddy asked. 

“A scientist who works with fish and things in the ocean,” Bill said, and then there was a knock on the door. “Come in.” 

A doctor entered, wearing a white coat over dark blue scrubs with her hair in a ponytail and a Starfleet pin on her lapel. Randall liked her already. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Dr. Wu, the orthopedist on shift. Your nephew’s X-rays have come in and I’d like to discuss them with you.” Her eyes fell on Randall. “Are you one of his uncles, too?” 

“No,” Derensky said, “he’s my ride. One of my colleagues at work.” 

“Are you comfortable having him here?” 

“Yes,” said Bill. “He’s not going to tell anyone.” Derensky nodded, and so did Freddy, although Randall didn’t think he understood what they were nodding for. 

Dr. Wu took two X-ray images out of the folder she was carrying, clipped them to the lightbox on the wall, and flipped the switch. Freddy’s leg bones suddenly came into view in sharp black and white. “Frederick fractured both his tibia and his fibula when he fell,” she said, and pointed to an area on each X-ray. Randall was no doctor, but the bones definitely looked cracked to him. “Luckily, those are small fractures and they’re common. We’ll need to put him in a soft cast to immobilize his leg until the swelling in his ankle goes down, and he needs to come back in five days to have a hard cast put on, but he should be out of it in six weeks or so. That depends on how he heals.” 

“I’m Freddy,” Freddy said. “Did I break my leg?” 

“Yes, you did,” Dr. Wu told him. “You broke it in two places, but you’ll be okay. We’ll put a cast on you that doesn’t go up past your knee. You might even be able to walk on it in a couple of weeks if you’re careful.” 

“Oh, a walking cast,” said Bill. “That’s good. Thank God it’s not worse.” He gulped some water out of the other cup he’d brought. “Are they hairline fractures, then?” 

The doctor nodded once, the action as crisp as her words. It was clear to Randall that she had more urgent places to go and people to see than one kid who’d made a bad decision, but at least she wasn’t being rude about it. “They’re minor,” she said. “It’s almost better that they’re even as bad as they are. We might not have caught them if they were greenstick fractures, which are pretty common in kids Freddy’s age. The bones aren’t as hard as in adults.” 

“I found a green stick once,” Freddy said. “The bark got all peeled off and it was all wet inside. Then it was regular-stick-color when I had it in the drawer for two weeks.” 

Dr. Wu actually smiled at that one. The rest of her patients were probably a lot more depressing than Freddy, and less funny, too. “That’s why they’re called greenstick fractures,” she said. “In kids your age, the bones aren’t as hard. They can be a little bendy, like a new stick. They’ll get harder when you’re older and your leg’s going to be just fine.” 

Bill moved closer to the light box and leaned in, squinting. “Those fractures look awfully low,” he said. “Are you sure the growth plates are all right?” 

“Do you have a medical background?” Dr. Wu asked. 

“Nurse,” Bill said. “CNP. I got my master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts about…it would be about twelve years ago now.” He peered at the X-rays again. “Sorry, I’m just a bit anal about this. His growth plates are fine?” 

“You’re a nurse?” Dr. Wu suddenly nodded hard, like that information explained something she’d been confused about. “I wondered why these came back so quickly. You must’ve met someone with friends in Radiology.” 

“Oh, God,” Bill muttered, rubbing his eyes with the heels of both hands. “I hope I didn’t just accidentally kill someone.” 

She touched his arm with a grin. “I don’t remember any super-critical cases,” she said. “Your conscience should be clear.” Pushing Bill a little ways off to the side, she tapped one of the X-rays. “You asked about the growth plates. He was lucky there, actually. An inch or so lower on those fractures and he could have destroyed them.” She sucked in her breath and glanced at Freddy. “But you’re okay,” she added quickly. “You’re not in any danger at all.” 

“’Cept it hurts,” Freddy said. “Can I get the good drugs now?” 

Dr. Wu let out an honest-to-goodness belly laugh at that. “Who told you that? What are the good drugs?” 

“Uncle Bill’s friend Monique,” Freddy said. “The good drugs are magnesium soul-fighting and lots and lots of paracetamol and codeine.” He pronounced the last word ‘cod-eine’, like he was talking about fish. He was probably still thinking about their Dead Fish Soup conversation. 

“Magnesium _sulfate_ ,” Bill corrected, sounding embarrassed. “Monique’s seen more than a few patients with pre-eclampsia get their lives saved that way. She’s made a bit of a joke out of it.” 

“I’ve heard worse,” the doctor said. “All right, Freddy needs to get his leg wrapped. Someone will be in here to do that soon.” She nodded at all four of them. “Freddy, I hope you feel better soon. You’ve been very well-behaved.” 

Freddy thanked her with a solemn nod, and she left just as briskly as she had come, the door closing behind her. “Oh, Jesus,” Derensky said. No F. Lipschitz? This was not good. “Growth plates? He almost…” 

“Theo.” Bill grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed his ass down onto the bed. “Calm down, Theo. His growth plates are fine. The fractures were an inch away from them, didn’t you hear?” 

“I almost killed my kid!” Derensky bellowed, covering his face with his hands. “Bill, I should’ve been there!" 

“Uncle Theo, you didn’t do anything.” Freddy sounded close to tears, and from the splotchy look of his cheeks and neck, he was. “It was Braden. Braden made me jump, not you!” 

Derensky shook his head. “Braden’s a little dick,” he said. “I still should’ve been there. God, I’m such a shit parent. Total shit!” 

“Has he ever been like this?” Randall asked, leaning over to whisper in Bill’s ear. He had a sneaking, suspicious dread in the pit of his stomach that this weird behavior was somehow related to what Derensky had pulled in class, which was somehow related to whatever research he was doing on Exodus, which was related to whoever the fuck Drake was, which was related to he didn’t even know what. All he knew was that one of his enemies was self-destructing and he couldn’t even bring himself to be more than passingly happy about it. 

“No,” Bill hissed. “God’s having a field day with him right now.” 

The words came out before he could stop them. “God doesn’t exist.” Dammit. Now was not the time for atheism, even if he was right. 

True to form, and to Randall’s expectations, Bill glared at him. “You might want to get out of here,” he said, though to Randall’s relief, he said it without venom. “This is an emotional time. Theo! Theo, do not collapse on me. Freddy, you’ll be all right, dammit, why don’t I have four hands?” 

“I’m his ride,” Randall said. “His car’s still in the school lot. They might tow it.” Derensky had a parking pass, but the police had been known to zealously tow faculty cars before if they were left overnight, the philistines. Probably wanted to soak every broke academic as punishment for not believing that killing was right. 

“I’ll drive,” Derensky gasped through his fingers. “I can get it. Bill…Bill’ll drive behind me and m-make sure I’m safe.” 

“Bill?” Randall said. There would be nothing better for him than to get out of here right the hell now, but if Derensky would actually crash into something by virtue of him not being there, he wouldn’t let that blood stain his hands. Bill was probably a responsible driver, but still, the idea nagged at him. “Are you sure you can get this?” 

Bill nodded, lips pursed as he rubbed a whimpering Freddy’s head with one hand and erensky’s shaking back with the other. “Yes, Randall, _please_ get out of here. You’re doing more harm than good. Just – we’ll be all right. Freddy, sweetheart, your leg will feel better soon.”

Of all Bill’s rapid-fire promises, that last assurance was likely the only one that wasn’t completely pie-in-the-sky. Modern medicine could work much better miracles on a six-year-old’s pain levels than on Derensky’s broken brain. “I’ll go,” he said, and noticed suddenly that his left leg was jiggling up and down. This much stress was _not_ good for him. “I’ll see you around. Derensky, get yourself under control. Bill, good luck.” 

He turned around and left, trying to mimic the same briskness that Dr. Wu had displayed, but with the glimpse of Bill’s second venomous glare out of the corner of his eye, he feared he wasn’t terribly successful. 

The car started up at once when Randall put in the key – a small favor, since the thing had a nasty habit of refusing to start when he most needed to get out of a bad situation, even when he hadn’t accidentally left the lights on overnight. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this eager to leave anywhere at all. 

He needed a damn drink. There was still gin in the cabinet and he suspected he would require a gin and tonic, a gimlet, or both (most likely both) before he could consider himself anywhere near ready to talk about what had happened. It wasn’t a special occasion, but on the virtue of its fucked-up-ness, what he’d just been through probably qualified. 

A ring broke the silence of the car – his phone attachment. Randall hit the ‘answer’ button on his steering wheel. “Hello?” 

“Dad?” 

“Hello, Luukas,” Randall said. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Luukas said, and his voice cracked. “Jeez. Ow. I mean, not ow, just…I didn’t…okay, Dad, there’s something I want to ask you.” 

The Aspie chatter always meant Luukas was nervous. “Calm down,” said Randall in as measured a tone as he could. “Give yourself a hug, Luukas. Then tell me what you have to say.” 

He heard a noisy breath through the car speakers, then another. “Okay,” his son said. “I’ve been looking online a lot and, um, I’m happy here, but I think I’d be happier other places and Dad, could I go to boarding school for high school? Please? Like, Exeter or something? I promise I’ll get a job and pay you back the rest of my life if I have to –“ 

“ _Luukas_ ,” Randall interrupted. “Don’t work yourself up. Money’s not the issue here.” His and Alice’s salaries weren’t enormous – she, like him, was in academia, though her field was honest-to-goodness astrophysics – but Luukas was already in private school and they could stand to budget some more for the boarding portion if they had to. “What brought this on?” 

“The academics are really, really good,” Luukas said, “and I really like the archery team and everyone _sucks_ here, Dad. They’ve known me since I was ten, okay? I grew up and they still call me those names, like from when I used to stim a lot.” Thank goodness for clear terminology. Luukas had read just about every book about autism he could get his hands on when he was diagnosed at five, although he hadn’t been able to get through most of them until years later. Randall still smiled whenever he remembered an indignant Luukas stomping up to him with the complaint of “I can’t wead this!” 

He sighed through his nose. “We’ll talk later, Luukas,” he said. “Keep in mind, I’m not saying no. You and your mother and I do need to talk this through so we can make the right decision for all of us.” 

“Okay.” Luukas did that clicking thing with his mouth, the one that used to annoy Randall before he just gave it up as something he needed to let his son do for his own mental good. “Can we talk when you get home? If I have to wait through dinner, I’m not gonna be able to eat.” 

Luukas’s history told him that this was very true. “Sure,” Randall said. “I’ll warm up leftovers or something. Tell your mom I want to talk to her, too. Not about your boarding school thing – this has to do with Derensky.” 

He could just about hear Luukas rolling his eyes. “Dad, you _have_ to grow up.” 

“I know.” Randall patted the steering wheel. “I love you, Luukas. I’ll talk to you later, all right?” 

“Okay,” said Luukas, and hung up. 

Randall drummed his fingers on the top of the wheel as he took the ramp onto the highway. Bill hadn’t done anything to rein in Derensky’s antics, clearly, which meant he probably hadn’t noticed them, since Bill Baggins did not appear to suffer fools gladly. Reckless endangerment, that was what it was, letting his husband run around half-cocked like that and likely get himself killed in the process. If this continued, he’d have to have a long talk with Bill, possibly with a straitjacket in the trunk of his car if the man agreed to do something about the rabid wolverine he was married to. 

For now, though, he needed two drinks for sure. Two drinks and a cigarette in the backyard where Luukas couldn’t see or smell it, because he would _not_ raise an addict on top of everything else. Setting his son on the road to chain-smoking after everything else that had happened this afternoon? Well, that would just take the cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magnesium sulfate is a tocolytic, or a drug given to stop premature labor, as well as seizure prophylaxis in pregnant patients with pre-eclampsia or full-on eclampsia. My mother had to have it when I attempted to be born a month and a half early. 
> 
> All right, I feel I have to make a very serious note here: yes, this is the portion of canon that you think it is, and the precipitating factor is much the same. Any trolling messages about how Theo (or Thorin) is "abusive" or a villain due to gold sickness will be shut down immediately. As a person with severe mental illness, I will not allow that.


	26. Not All That Glitters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the fire that has hidden inside Theodor Derensky finally comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're BACK, baby!

i.

The lock on Theo’s study door didn’t work – had, in fact, been filled in by the previous owner. Theo had complained about that a thousand times, citing the cats bothering him while he wrote or being able to smell things cooking and getting distracted, but Bill couldn’t have been more grateful now. He pushed on the door with his fingertips and, stupidly, sighed in relief when it opened. Theo wouldn’t hear him. He couldn’t _possibly_ hear him.

_“I can’t believe you’ve got me drinking tea, Bill. What’s in this? It’s good.”_

_“I put in some milk and cinnamon.”_

Extra vanilla sugar. The best cinnamon he had in the kitchen. Wonderful flavors, _trustworthy_ flavors to distract from five benzodiazepine pills dissolved in that treacherous tea. Only the fact that they’d been prescribed to him instead of palmed off the hospital dispensary – not that he hadn’t seen his colleagues do the same thing for a few medicines – kept him from turning back. Monsters drugged their husbands, not nurses. When Theo woke from this hell, Bill only hoped he would forgive him. 

The only light in the little room came from Theo’s screensaver, blue ribbons moving against a black background. Bill shook the cursor and squinted at the password screen when it came up. All right, that was new, but he hadn’t been expecting anything less. Four and a half years of knowing Theo wouldn’t go to waste, not if he had anything to say about it. Neither would his having been present (if mostly asleep) when Theo programmed in the password for his phone. He cracked his knuckles and typed _bilbo092271_ , a password so bloody silly and sweet that he blushed even as the screen cleared to show Theo’s plain black desktop background. 

“What now?” he asked the empty room. His fingers twitched as if to tell him that this was his worst idea yet, or maybe he was just projecting. Theo had made his password all about Bill – what was Bill doing, then, betraying him like this? 

He stood up from the computer chair, but almost immediately sat back down as if someone had pulled him back. _No_. He would get to the bottom of this, find out what had made Theo a reticent, snappish, single-minded, research-bound _fright_ of a man for most of this past year, or he would…well, hurt himself trying. Death was not in the cards. 

“What do we say to the god of death?” he whispered, licking his suddenly-dry lips. “Not today.” Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself and clicked on the first folder he saw. 

Theo’s email client popped up – the personal one, not the academic. The first message was from him, a fast message he’d sent to Theo earlier that afternoon off his phone to say he’d be home from work a bit late. But the next sender, and the one after, and what looked like the whole inbox from there…

 _Smaug, Drake Ignatius_. Academic address. Columbia fucking University, in the same country, bare states away, _close to Theo_. 

Bill reeled back in the chair and dimly heard something crack beneath him, but compared to the sudden crack of understanding in his mind, oh, no, not even close. Drake Ignatius Smaug, the bane of Theodor Derensky’s life Smaug, the reason Theo used about a million proxies before he made any sort of post on the T.D. Darrens blog Smaug, and he was contacting his husband. Of _course_. “Idiot,” he said faintly, or maybe it only sounded faint through the blood roaring up his carotid arteries. “Should’ve known.” 

His hands shook so much that he accidentally clicked out of the program, but he pulled the shakes together enough that he could pull it back up and search for Smaug’s name. There had to be hundreds of messages here from the shithead, and they went back to – oh, no. Bill brought his face closer and stared at the screen, and no, he hadn’t misread. The very first message from Smaug was dated the ninth of January, 2017, ten months before to the day, a week before Theo’s mouth began to thin and his eyebrows moved downward into a seemingly permanent furrow. 

Numbly, Bill reached out to the desk lamp and switched it on, then laughed. The sound came out as a whimper. How he could think about the possibility of eyestrain when a smoking gun rested in front of him, he had no idea, but there it was. Perks of being a nurse. The perks of being a history professor, apparently, included a message of solicitation from your sworn enemy after you’d booted him to the curb three years previously. 

_From: Smaug, Drake Ignatius_  
To: Theodor Derensky [notsotheological@gmail]  
Subject: Do not ignore this 

“Very kind,” Bill said, and snorted. “That’s the way to make him stop hating you, Iggy, yes.” 

_Teddy,_

_I do hope you don’t mind my using your old epithet here, as I also hope we will soon have reason to be using nicknames again._

_This message is to inform you that I have taken a position in the Department of History at Columbia University, which you will be able to confirm if you search for their department listing. My research specialty, trade history in England, has as its especial focus the trade between the Middle East and my own home island throughout recorded time._

_We have had terrible differences. Given our potential to revolutionise the area of history, I find that a terrible shame and I hope you do as well. What happened between us was extremely regrettable. Our mutual hot heads could not help but initiate it, but I do hope that cooler heads will prevail now on both of our parts. I would like to initiate dialogues with you regarding our mutual interests, and potentially on other subjects within the purview of our illustrious field as well._

_I wish you the best of times, and to whomever you may choose to spend your life with as well._

_With compliments,  
Ignatius._

If that was a compliment, then it was on par with Lobelia telling him that those trousers would be fetching if only the shop hadn’t been sold out of his size, and he had not been at all pleased with said ‘compliment’ when she delivered it. The nerve of that pathetic excuse for a human, that blighter. What was he playing at? Bill found the next e-mail up, which included Theo’s initial response. 

_Iggy,_

_Whatever the hell you’re doing, knock it off. I have no interest in creating any dialogues with you and I have no idea why you’re in this country, except maybe to fuck with me._

_Come anywhere near me again, online or otherwise, and I’m taking out a restraining order._

_Theodor Derensky, Ph.D._

All right, so that was very much in line with Theo’s opinion of Smaug, but why on Earth had he kept in contact with the man if he’d threatened him with legal action? 

_Theodor,_

_Please do believe me when I say I have no designs on your virtue. I contacted you to tell you that I was mistaken about my opinions of your work when we first met. Indeed, I had been misinformed by my academic peers and my professors, and I believe you are correct about the origins of the Exodus story._

_My interest in your well-being, and my intention in contacting you, were purely academic. For the good of the world, I believe that we can improve humanity’s understanding of our origins. I do, however, understand that you are eminently capable of doing the same yourself, and should you still request no more contact, I will honor your request._

_Ignatius._

“Wanker,” Bill said. “That wanker.” He’d done his share of academic work over the years, his master’s degree most recently, but this went beyond the pale. Drake Ignatius Smaug, that pretentious load of shit, had landed Theo hook, line, and sinker without a single apology. “How?” he asked the room, and then it came to him. That night Theo and Freddy made up that story – how had he forgotten Theo’s near-mania? His drive to fulfill his grandfather’s dream of disproving the Bible for humanity’s good? 

Night. _Shit_. Five Valium in Theo’s tea had been based on his need to keep his husband asleep, not on any careful calculation. What if he’d stopped breathing? Bill’s own breath caught and he took his cramping hand off the mouse. He had to have been clenching it without realizing, and no wonder, with Smaug bullshitting his way across the screen. 

He left the room and, on his tiptoes, went back upstairs. “Uncle Bill?” came Freddy’s sleepy voice from his room as Bill passed by. “What are you doing?” 

“Shhh,” Bill said, and held a finger against his lips. “I’m checking on Uncle Theo. We don’t want to wake him, do we?” 

“Nuh-mm,” said Freddy. “Can you come back and tuck me in?” 

Bill blinked. “I’ve already tucked you in tonight, Freddy. Why do you need another?” Damn it all, now he was turning into his stuffier relatives. His own worries were no excuse. “Are you all right?” 

“Uh-huh,” Freddy replied, “it’s just I can’t sleep. Can you come in when you’re done with Uncle Theo?” 

“Sure, love,” Bill told him, and patted the door frame with his palm. “I’ll only be a minute.” 

Theo lay where Bill had left him, sprawled out on their bed with his bedside lamp still on. Bill laid a hand on his forehead – normal temperature – and then moved the hand to Theo’s chest, which rose and fell just as it normally did. “Theo, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. Theo lay there as still as stone, save for his breathing. “I’m doing what I have to.” 

But what was that sort of reassurance if Theo ended up hating him? Drugging him went over the line by anyone’s standards, and Bill’s stomach roiled. He held a hand against his mouth, but the heaving in his gut quieted after a few seconds. 

This was going nowhere. Bill heaved a sigh, touched Theo’s forehead once more, and turned out the lamp as he left. For good measure, he closed the door, too. Not that it would stop Theo if he got up and decided to go wandering, but extra precautions couldn’t hurt. The door might at least stop Rug from wandering in and making himself a nuisance. 

“Uncle, you’re back!” Freddy exclaimed as he approached. Then, in a quieter tone, he said, “Sorry, forgot. Uncle Theo’s got to have his sleep.” 

“That’s right,” Bill said. He went in and sat down on the end of Freddy’s bed, then stood up to look at the suspicious lumps under his bum. Flipping on the light confirmed the diagnosis. “Freddy, have you been reading in bed again?” 

“Um,” Freddy said as he glanced away and bit his lower lip. “Ow. I just get really excited about the books, Uncle Bill.” 

“Well,” said Bill, and picked up one of the books, “at least you’re reading good things. Harry Potter, that’s always a good choice. How far have you gotten?” 

Freddy put a finger on his chin and cast his eyes up to the ceiling in thought. “The troll part,” he said. “’Cept I don’t understand something. Why did Hermione let them call her bad names?” 

“I’m impressed that you can pronounce ‘Hermione,’” Bill told him. “That’s not bad for someone your age.” 

“Auntie Bandy says it’s from Shakespeare,” Freddy said. “He wrote lots of plays. Why did Hermione let them call her names?” 

Bill sucked in his lips. “That’s a difficult question,” he said. Freddy looked at him with big eyes. “Are there any bullies in your year?” 

“No,” Freddy said. “They’re nice in my class. Braden at camp, he’s a bully. He made me jump out of the tree.” He took his leg out from under the covers and pointed to it. “See, my leg’s all skinny now.” 

“Yes, we can all agree Braden’s a bit of a bad apple,” said Bill. They never did talk to the boy’s parents, he realized. With Theo so distraught, it had slipped his mind. “Anyway, we were talking about Hermione, right?” Freddy nodded. “Right, then. The problem with Hermione is that she talked a lot and she was a know-it-all, but that didn’t mean she didn’t deserve to have any friends. People treating her awfully made her lonely.” 

“Like me in Michel Delving,” Freddy mused, and the corners of his mouth turned down. “Lobelia and Lotho were _awful_. Olly wasn’t so bad. He said ‘Lotho, you can’t put Freddy’s head down the loo, that’s for poo and wee.’” 

Now this was something he hadn’t heard about. “Lotho put your head down the _where_ now?” Bill said – demanded, he supposed, if he were being truly honest. “Where did he get an idiot idea like that?” 

“Off the telly,” Freddy said. “No, I mean the TV.” He shook his head. “I get confused about what to say.” 

He wasn’t the only one to have noticed the difference. Two years on, Freddy’s accent, while still British at the core, had hybridized into something a bit weirder. Both ‘telly’ and ‘TV’ came out of his mouth on a regular basis, and a tourist who came up to gawk at Harvard had once thought he was Canadian. But he had more important things to think about now than the plasticity of children’s brains. “Lotho had no right to do that to you,” he said. “I’ve got half a mind to call up his father and –“ Get distracted, that was apparently what he had half a mind to do. “Never mind, I can call him tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow’s Uncle Theo’s birthday.” Freddy was right. As it happened to fall on a Friday, they’d planned for months to have his party at Hillel. And Bill was damned if he was going to let Theo celebrate his forty-sixth birthday with a monkey on his back, which was what had led to…well, tonight. 

“It _is_ Uncle Theo’s birthday,” Bill agreed. “We’ll have to give him a big hug, won’t we? Anyway, Hermione let those kids call her names because she wouldn’t have been able to do anything else, would she? You can’t stop people from calling names in private, and she was so lonely that she let them, a bit.” 

“Because she couldn’t do anything to make them stop,” said Freddy, and deflated a bit. “I couldn’t do anything when Lotho gave me a swirly. I punched him in the bollocks, though.” 

Bill resisted the temptation to say ‘good for you,’ and instead admonished Freddy with a simple “Language,” then chuckled at his nephew’s guilty expression. “Cousin Ads has been talking to you, hasn’t he? No, don’t answer that.” He didn’t want to have to chide Ads, too. Disciplining one family member was exhausting enough. “Right. I’ve got to tuck you in and go back downstairs now. No reading after I put out the light. Promise me, Freddy.” 

“I promise,” Freddy sighed. “I’ll go to sleep now. Uncle Bill?” 

“Yes?” 

“I put the minty paste on the exposed parts of my skeleton,” said Freddy with a wicked grin, “and now I’m gonna go lie down in a darkened room for hours.” 

Bill didn’t even try to hide his snort as soon as the realization of what that meant came to him. “Who told you that one?” 

“Phil and Caleb. They saw it on a tumbler,” said Freddy. “You put your drinks in a tumbler and that makes them fancy.” 

Bill briefly considered correcting him, but at seven, Freddy was far too young to learn anything about the cesspit that was Tumblr. The Darrens fansites were bad enough; some of the memes Phil and Caleb had likely talked about in front of Freddy were just plain in terrible taste. What did teenagers like so much about taking quotable sentences and calling them “good shit” at length? Perhaps the world would never know. “Yes, they make them fancy,” he said. “Lights out, then. Lie down and I’ll tuck you in.” 

Freddy wiggled down in his blankets and let Bill tuck them in around him. “Thanks for the tuck-in, Uncle Bill,” he said. “I mean tucking me in, not eating food. They say weird stuff in England, don’t they? I said it, too.” 

Bill turned off the lamp. “Yes, love, we do,” he said. “It’s what makes us wonderful.” He was turning to go when a thought occurred to him. “Out of curiosity, was there anything in the toilet when Lotho flushed your head in it?” 

“I made wee in it,” Freddy said. “That’s when he came in.” 

“Wait, he followed you into the loo?” Freddy nodded, and Bill couldn’t help making a face. “Strange child,” he said. 

“He just followed me in so he could put my head in,” Freddy explained. “He didn’t watch.” 

That was better, but just barely. “All right,” Bill said. “Good night, Freddy. Sleep well, and no reading after I go.” He came back and kissed Freddy’s forehead, then closed his door most of the way as he left and walked back to his bedroom. One more check, that was all, just one. 

Theo was still breathing normally, this time with a few snores mixed in. Well, if Bill had to make himself a felon, at least he’d made sure that Theo got some real sleep at the same time. Perhaps whichever judge sentenced him to life in the dreary, Dickensian tanty of his nightmares would go easy on him for that reason. 

“I love you,” he said, and dared a kiss to Theo’s forehead. Theo’s breathing didn’t change, save for a loud snore just after Bill lifted his face away. Bill froze, but Theo’s eyelids didn’t flutter, nor did he show any signs of having been faking his sleep. _Calm down_ , Bill thought furiously at his racing heart. Stupid thing would do him in one of these days, just like his father.

Back downstairs in the study, Rug waited for him on the chair, the dim lamplight turning his eyes to creepy glowing bulbs after Bill closed the door behind him. “What a good boy,” Bill whispered as he lifted Rug off. “You always know when something is for your dad’s good. What a good cat.” 

Rug did a fancy sort of half-turn on the floor and curled up, letting out a low, growling purr of contentment. With his shitey luck, Bill suddenly realized, Rug might actually be serving as another facet of his conscience, telling him that he should just shut off Theo’s computer and go back upstairs like a good husband would do. “No, dammit, Rug,” he said, “I’m not that paranoid. Don’t make me paranoid.” 

Something creaked uncomfortably close to his ear. Instinctively, Bill’s hands shot out to cover the screen and he tightened up; his vision momentarily blurred, then settled when no follow-up came to the sound. “Fuck,” he whispered. “The house.” Now the bleeding _walls settling_ had him wound up tighter than a pocket watch. 

Maybe he was the one who needed a cup of Valium tea right about now, possibly with a spot of alcohol for extra central-nervous-system depression. 

Bill pursed his lips and sighed slowly through them: four seconds to breathe in, seven to hold it, eight to breathe out. Then he opened Theo’s e-mail again and squinted, probably because of the brightness of the screen, but possibly (though he knew it was ridiculous) to defend himself in however small a way he could against the assault of Smaug’s words. 

_Teddy,_ began an email from sometime in March,

_I have no idea why you believe my current mental status is suited to handle this account of your troubles at work. Are you sure you’re not attempting to emotionally manipulate me? Teddy, you know that my troubles at work are sufficient that I can take on no responsibilities but my own. My temperament, as you well know from your time spent mocking it before you so unceremoniously abandoned me, has always been relatively delicate. I have a tendency towards attacks of depression that would not help my career if they were to be displayed as openly as you clearly desire. You can imagine the toll that my physical condition takes as well; have I told you that my joints are beginning to suffer?_

_However, my ailments are no one’s concern but my own, and I certainly should not overburden your already-burdened shoulders. Let us remain focused on the subject of your writing. Quite apart from the woes with which you regaled me in your last e-mail, I look with some concern to your fellow historians’ lack of understanding about your need for research. Why not turn your considerable manipulative talents towards them? Networking is nothing without some display of viciousness, if disguised in vulnerability._

_I believe that a sabbatical might be a fine idea for you; if necessary, go toe-to-toe with your superior on the issue. It is certainly what you deserve._

_Drake._

The fucking cad had a set of brass ones big enough to accuse Theo of emotional manipulation? “Pot,” said Bill to Rug, “meet kettle, and here, go on and meet the rest of the nice kitchenware, too.” God, how far gone was Theo if he hadn’t told Smaug where to put his skinny, scaly arse after that piece of verbal vomit? 

The following eight months’ worth of communications indicated that he hadn’t, and so did the groveling message that Theo sent back to Smaug. 

_Drake – I’m so, so, so sorry, I didn’t know it was that bad. Do you need a doctor? I know a bunch of doctors. There are some great dermatologists in Boston, I’ll use whatever pull I have to find them._

And he was splicing commas, too? Who was this wretch and what had he done with Theodor Derensky? 

Bill pressed an arm against his abdomen, which once again felt uncomfortably bubbly, as if the butterflies in his stomach had all managed to be sick at the same time. Mechanically, he flipped through email after email with his free hand and the computer mouse; Smaug’s words filled the screen and his eyes, venomous and so obviously calculated that he didn’t know how Theo hadn’t seen it.  
_Theodor_ , every email began, or _Teddy_ , and then the insults began. __

_…your attention to detail is admirable, but Meador and authors never…_

_…I find your infuriating focus on yourself nearly an insult in and of itself…_

_…postpone our usual afternoon call, as I find myself called to a meeting of people hardly more intelligent than the paper on which they write…_

_…should you continue to work at your second-rate university, I shall have no choice but to…_

“Wait a fucking minute,” Bill said, finger frozen mid-click. Second-rate university. Had Smaug tried to convince Theo to quit? Quit his job that he’d held for over ten years and loved so bloody much that he’d been known to dress up in costume for class demos? 

God, the next email was from Bill’s boss. Bill felt his heart speed up as he clicked on it. 

_From: Ventura, Melinda [mventura@wentworth . edu]  
To: Theodor Derensky [notsotheological@gmail]_

_Theo: no, you can’t take a sabbatical. It’s way too late in the semester to find a replacement for you, I don’t care what kind of research you think you have to spend a year on. No, I’m not going to call Columbia for this friend of yours without a background check. I have no idea who he is._

_Get your head out of the clouds. So far there’s nothing actionable, but I heard complaints from a bunch of students this semester about you cutting your office hours. Randall’s been sharing interesting stuff with me, too. I don’t care what crap students throw at you. You can’t talk to them like that._

_I support your research and everything you’re doing, but you need to teach first. See you on Monday._

“Your father’s been taken for a ride,” Bill told Rug – talking, at this point, was his only alternative to screaming. “Smaug’s trying to make him torpedo his own career.” It was a diabolically clever move, of course; that was Smaug’s modus operandi. Had he come to Dr. Ventura with a phony complaint to try to get Theo fired himself, surely no one would have believed him. 

Smaug, of course, had something to say about Dr. Ventura. Bill wouldn’t have expected anything less. 

_Teddy,_

_Ventura certainly does_ not _have your best interests at heart. I will thank you to stop saying so. Who knows you better: she, or myself? I have known you at your worst, when your thoughts were of fire and death in the former Fertile Crescent._

_While I realise that you hold some paradoxical, sentimental attachment to your work at the university, your talents would be much better served elsewhere. Should you feel that you absolutely need to work at the hands-on portion of academia, I could speak to my supervisor. I am sure he could be persuaded to take you on in some position or other._

_Drake._

“Take him on as a janitor or something if you have your way, Iggy,” Bill whispered. Suddenly, there was a soft weight in his lap, and he nearly jumped out of his seat. “Good God, Rug, stop surprising me. What if you were Theo?” 

“ _Prrrr_ ,” said Rug, and flexed his paw on Bill’s thigh, then began to knead. With claws. Wonderful. 

Next email – no, not the next one. He couldn’t bear to see any more of Smaug’s verbal abuse towards Theo’s desire to do his job. Instead, he petted Rug and clicked on an email dated a few days previous. 

_Theodor,_

_Must you tell me about your injuries when you know I’m going to be eating? The story of your burns nearly put me off my supper. You know very well how difficult this stress has made it for me to eat. Please show some courtesy the next time you choose to contact me._

Burns? “He’s not burned,” said Bill, but slowly, his hand stilled on Rug. Come to think of it, he didn’t believe he’d seen Theo in the nude in a week or so, nor had he seen him without his socks. Theo had been at the forge the past few weekends. Oh, God. 

_Your experience this week should serve as a wake-up call. I have long suspected that the American habit of creating reenactments of their most disgustingly rebellious times is simply an expression of the vulgarity of Americans in general._

_Forging has no benefit for you, save for its effect on your musculature. You are forty-five years old and I should hope you would have grown out of the desire to become a ‘beefcake’ by now. I have yet to reach nearly that age and I have never desired such a look._

_Consider, perhaps, spending your weekends on more fruitful pursuits._

_Drake._

That shithead. Had he forgotten that medieval times in England involved a lot more rebellion and just as much offal and excrement as anything America had produced? Yet England still held its share of medieval faires and Smaug didn’t seem to mind that, nor did he seem concerned about Theo’s – “Burns,” said Bill, horrified, and exchanged panicked looks with Rug. Rug narrowed his slitted green eyes at him. “I’ve got to check on your father. Get up, Rug.”

“ _Meeeeer_ ,” said Rug, and rolled over. 

“Are you saying you actually want me to pet you?” said Bill indignantly. “Now?” Yes, it did appear that Rug was showing him his tummy for non-nefarious petting purposes. “No, Rug, _off_. I’m going to see where Theo’s burnt himself.” 

Rug’s lips curled back and, with a venomous hiss and a show of teeth, he jumped down. Bill stood up and brushed the cat hair off his trousers before he went back upstairs. 

Freddy appeared asleep, and so did Theo. “Where did you burn yourself?” Bill whispered as he sat down beside him. This might wake him up, but he had to know. “Here?” He took one of Theo’s hands and examined it – no burns, just the usual calluses. No burns on his arms, nor on his legs. No hair was singed off, nor was - _there_. 

Theo’s left sock had ridden down, and now Bill traced his fingers over the line of a newly-exposed burn, dark and blotchy. He gently pulled the sock off. “Theo, what did you do?” he asked, but as expected, no answer came. The burn stained the skin of Theo’s ankle myriad mottled shades of dusty, discolored brown and pink, and when Bill touched it, flakes came off. Still, Theo didn’t stir. 

“You’re healing,” Bill said, but couldn’t repress a soft “Oh, Theo.” How much time had he spent in pain? He’d kept his socks on to keep his injuries from Bill, obviously, but this was Smaug at work. Smaug had always come across as cruel enough to want to completely isolate Theo from everyone he knew and loved. 

He carefully pulled the sock back up onto Theo’s foot, then stood up and walked to the bookshelves on some impulse he couldn’t quite explain. “No,” he said, running his fingers over the spines. He must have noticed and kept the knowledge in some repressed place inside his head, but the fact remained that not even Theo’s favorite novels lived here anymore. Bill touched book after book with shaking hands: manuals of Akkadian grammar next to Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature. Writings From the Ancient World. The Age of Agade. The History of the Ancient World. 

All the way down, the subjects were the same, and Bill found himself on his knees as he touched every book with his shaking fingers. Then his eyes lit on the last book on the bottom shelf, shoved in between two hardcovers in a series as if forgotten, and filled with tears. It seemed so long ago that Theo had bought the Poetic Eddas so the two of them could write something truly wonderful. 

The Hobbit lost its spark months ago, though Theo urged him – and himself – to keep writing, keep writing, whipping himself with words like a horse. But those words he was so keen to produce were sputtering now; Bill didn’t think they had written anything in weeks. 

Yes, he definitely knew why now. 

He pulled out the book and clutched it to his chest. “I’ll help you,” he said. “I don’t know how, but I will.” Smaug could have his husband over his dead body, and even then, he suspected that Theo would have something to say about desecrating a gravesite by having angry sex with his greatest enemy on top of it. 

Bill held the book tightly with one hand and took his phone off the bedside table with the other. No, there wasn’t much a nurse could do. Smaug the Terrible – Theo _knew_ how horrific he was and the man had still hoodwinked him; there had to be some dragon in him – could probably scruff him between thumb and forefinger and burn his face off with some sort of fire involving academic connections that would ruin his life. He was not, however, the only person in Theodor Derensky’s life, and anyone who grew up in Michel Delving and thought they could go along without asking for help got a very rude awakening early on. 

Bill went back to the study and paced back and forth along the floor, noting titles on shelves as he went. More on the Middle East, no surprise there, although those might very well have been there before; he’d never had much inclination to peruse the contents of Theo’s private shelves beyond occasionally nicking something fictional. “Not Dwight,” he said suddenly. Dwight and Theo had far too much history. It wasn’t as though Dwight wasn’t trustworthy; he trusted _Theo_ too much, more like, and Theo might as well be a time bomb set to implode and destroy himself right now. No thanks, of course, to Smaug. 

Danny, of course. He’d call Danny…Bill checked the time on his phone. 11:30 PM. Good grief (as a two-dimensional character with problems a lot less complicated than his own would say), he’d been reading poison emails for the better part of two hours. Anyway, Danny would definitely still be awake. So would Brian, who never did keep regular hours. They could talk it out, and after Theo left for work the next day, they could…what? 

Mechanically, Bill got back on the computer and pulled up Theo’s documents. There it was, all the data that the shelves lacked: articles, books in PDF format, and pages and pages of notes. All of this to feed an obsession whose flames Smaug was surely stoking for a malicious purpose. 

“Destroy it,” he said, though Rug was no longer there to hear. “Destroy all of it.” Theo would either snap out of this or snap altogether. Danny knew quite a bit about computers, given his part-time occupation chasing Theo’s various stalkers off the Internet, and Theo was due to go to work first thing in the morning. After that, it was right from work to Hillel, and Bill could surely think of something to keep him out of the study before then. 

Wanton destruction of all this knowledge was cruel, he knew, but it had to be done. What was more important now – this relative wealth of knowledge, or his husband’s life? 

Selfishness would prevail. He _would_ save Theo, even at the cost of his husband’s dream. New dreams could be dreamt, but a new life couldn’t spring from the ground like a sprout from an acorn, and Bill could not live with himself if he let Theo shrivel. He had already nearly burned. 

Bill clicked on Theo’s email again and sighed; suddenly, his head felt so heavy. He scanned the screen one more time and his eyes lit on an email that Theo had evidently received only yesterday. 

_Subject: The medical profession_

What did Smaug know about the medical profession? This would be either interesting or infuriating. Aching head or no aching head, Bill couldn’t resist a click. 

_Teddy,_

_I will freely admit that the title of this missive is purposely misleading. Were I to say anything about a certain medical professional, you likely would not have opened it. I feel I have held my tongue long enough, however, and I must say my piece._

_William Baggins has not done enough to support you in your relationship with him or your research. Likely, he will also not support you in your life. His small-mindedness has caused your mood to deteriorate beyond what might be expected of someone living with a rational man. I am sympathetic to the plight of his small nephew, but to hoodwink you into caring for a small child to which you are not related was a bad piece of work._

“How very dare you,” said Bill indignantly. This was Freddy’s home as much as it had ever been his, or for that matter, Theo’s. Theo was the parent to kiss him on the forehead when he brought home a good grade and the one to clean up after him when he was ill and Bill was asleep after a long shift. When Freddy wanted a sword for his sixth birthday, Theo had bought him a wooden one and promised to teach him to forge once he was strong enough to work at an anvil. There were times when he suspected Theo was a better parent to Freddy than Bill himself was, and Smaug had the nerve to suggest that he’d been coerced into it? To paraphrase something the bastard himself had probably said, preposterous!

_I am not attempting to suggest that you leave Baggins. I also promise that I am not attempting to snag you for myself. Those times are finished. Anything I have to say is said solely for your good, and nothing else._

_Ignatius._

“Call me ‘Baggins’ again and die,” Bill snarled at the computer. The shithead could stick his head down the toilet and have Lotho flush it if he thought he could fool Bill and Theo both. “It’s _Mister_ Baggins to you, scumsucker.” He was rather proud of that one, having come up with it after cleaning the pink _Serratia marcescens_ ring out of the bathtub for the hundredth time last week. “Time to die, you.” 

He picked up his phone, dialed the Reisbergs’ home phone number – Danny still had a landline for some reason – and waited while it rang. “Hello?” came a sleepy voice from the other end. 

“Oreet?” said Bill. “What are you still doing awake?” 

“I’m studying,” said Oreet with a yawn. “Big geometry test tomorrow. Do you want to talk to Danny?” 

“Yes, please. Good luck on the test.” 

The sound on the other end turned muffled as Oreet yelled for her brother, who promptly took over the phone himself. “Bill? How are you?” 

“I’m all right,” said Bill. He chuckled at the pleasantry – Danny could have come from Michel Delving, what with his insistence on proper manners on the telephone and everywhere else. “I’ve got a favor to ask. It’s massive, but there’s a lot of intangible reward in it for you if you say yes.”

ii.

“Noah!” Dwight yelled. He pulled open the door to his and Noah’s bedroom and rapped on the frame with his knuckles. “Do you want to be late to Theo’s birthday?”

“Oh, shit, is that right now?” A rustling noise immediately ensued, followed by a disturbance of the dust ruffle as Noah climbed out from under the bed – covered in dust, of course. Dwight needed to learn how to use a tiny vacuum under there. “Sorry, I was reading again.” 

Dwight looked around, grabbed a pair of clean underwear from where it was hanging out of the dresser drawer, and wiped Noah down with it. “Were you reading anything in particular?” he asked. 

“Those better not be dirty,” said Noah in lieu of an answer. 

“They’re not dirty, ding-dong. I got them out of the drawer.” Dwight jerked his thumb at the dresser and saw Noah relax. “This isn’t juvie, okay? I won’t wipe you down with butt-stink. Anyway, what were you reading?” 

“T.D. Darrens,” Noah said, “with a flashlight and a boner. Are you sure we have to go to this stupid-ass party?” 

Dwight closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Noah was _not_ going to make him stay home and fuck him all night using just the power of his voice, absolutely not. “This is important to Theo and Bill,” he said. “And Theo’s been so off in his own world lately. He really needs a party.” 

Noah relented with a shrug and an “Oh, okay” as he brushed the last of the dust out of his eyebrows. “How old is Theo, again? I’m pretty sure he’s older than you.” 

“Yeah, two years older.” Dwight patted his pockets to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to grab his keys. Good thing he did, because guess what, no keys. He probably needed some gingko biloba or something. “That makes him forty-six today. I’ll have to yank his chain about being an old man.” 

“Go for the reading glasses,” Noah suggested. “He’s probably sensitive about those. I caught him wearing them once when he was in his study.” 

Dwight squatted down – getting a slap on the ass from Noah for his trouble, not at all unexpected – and checked under the dresser. Kosher, for some reason, kept his stash of shiny things there. Silver cigarette lighter that he’d kept all these years even though he _told_ his dad he didn’t smoke, a new plastic Nylabone (Chazzer would be happy to see it again), a lightbulb…and there were his keys. “How would you have gotten anywhere near his study?” he asked as he grabbed them and stood back up. 

“Never underestimate The Great Reisberg-Feldman-ini’s skill at looking under doors and through keyholes.” 

“Ah.” He should have known. “So that’s where you went the last time we went over. I thought you went to the bathroom.” 

Noah shrugged. “Yeah, well, I did that, too.” 

“Practical man,” said Dwight. “So are we ready to go? You’re dressed?” He gave Noah a once-over and nodded. Now that the dust was off, Noah’s outfit – black jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt that Dwight had had to practically beg him to buy in gray instead of black – looked serviceable. The black combat boots were not, but nobody would be looking at Noah’s feet when there was a grouchy birthday boy in front of a cake. “Yeah, that looks good. Let’s head out.” 

“Wait,” Noah said. “I want to say good-bye to Kosher first. Kosher?” he called before Dwight could protest. “Kosher, come here. Here, Kosher!” 

Dwight pointed to his watch. “We’re gonna be late, Noah! It’s almost seven already.” He enjoyed a good piggy cuddle himself, save for nights when he and Noah were trying to get lucky and Kosher decided that that was the perfect time to haul his hundred and fifty pounds up onto the bed, but this was ridiculous. 

Kosher announced himself with a clack of hooves on the floor and a happy grunt, and Noah promptly ignored Dwight in favor of rubbing Kosher’s ears and kissing his nose. “Good piggy,” he said. “You gonna be a good boy while your daddies are at a party?” 

“Daddies need to go to the party _now_ ,” said Dwight. “Seriously, Noah, come on.” 

“Okay, okay.” Noah scratched Kosher’s back up and down his spine. “What are we getting him again?” 

“Nothing. We’ll either have him over for dinner or take him out for dinner, whatever he wants. All he can eat.” That could be quite a lot, depending on how hungry Theo was when dinner began, but it wasn’t like Theo had his birthday every day. Dwight could afford that once a year, and since Theo had told him repeatedly that he didn’t want anything the last couple of years, this was probably a good new tradition to kickstart. 

Noah stood up, and Dwight would have sworn that Kosher looked disappointed. Kosher got what he wanted too damn much, in his opinion, though at least Noah didn’t overfeed him when he wanted treats. He’d taken Dane’s warnings about not letting the pig get too fat to heart. “Okay, let’s go,” he said. “Hope Benny’s made a cake.” 

“I’ll be surprised if he hasn’t,” said Dwight, and led Noah out to his car. 

The parking lot was devoid of a couple of familiar cars when they arrived. Dwight let out a sigh of relief and parked the car. “We might be late, but at least we’re not the latest,” he said. “Bill can just yell at someone else.” 

“Good. I’m hungry,” Noah said. “I can’t eat when someone’s yelling at me. It sucks.” 

Simplistic, but Dwight knew he was no academic himself, and considering that Noah hadn’t even been able to attempt conversation about his dad when the two of them had first gotten together…well, this was an improvement. 

When they got inside, Danny’s decorating made itself apparent at once. Vases of fake flowers in dark blue and gold decorated each table, though thankfully he’d skipped the streamers this time. He’d never say so (because his brother-in-law could probably drop him with one punch to the head, portly as he was), but he’d found the decorations for Bill and Theo’s wedding way too flashy. 

“Oh, hello!” Bill greeted Dwight and Noah with his hands outstretched when they came to the social hall. “I’m so happy you could make it. Sit down! Or stand, it’s no matter to me.” His wide, fixed smile made Dwight narrow his eyes, years of police work having primed him to look for the signs of drugs right away – for better or for worse. 

“What’s for eating?” Noah asked, peering around Bill. Something did smell pretty delicious. “I’m starving.” 

Dwight rested his chin on top of Noah’s head to see what Bill would do (he just blinked and grinned even harder) and patted Noah’s belly. “It smells good,” he said, and ignored Noah’s loud squeak of protest. “I’m ready for some food, too.” 

“We’ve got brisket and chicken,” said Bill. “All Theo’s favorites. Salad, of course. Roasted potatoes, I think. Benny’s cooked, and I’m sure he’s made desserts, too. Go find a place, it doesn’t matter where.” 

They found an empty table next to Danny and Oreet; Noah, in Dwight’s experience, liked to keep a few feet of space between himself and his brother. “What’s with Bill?” Noah asked once they’d sat down. “He looks like a jack-in-the-box.” 

“He does, yeah,” Dwight agreed. “I think – hey, look, more people.” Dinah and Boaz, both red-faced, were pulling Phil and Caleb into the social hall; Boaz held a squirming Greggy, whose fretting Dwight could hear even from a distance, in his arms. “Looks like there was a hold-up.” 

Dinah pulled her family over to Noah and Dwight’s table, where they took the remaining seats. Greggy sat on Boaz’s lap, at least for a given value of ‘sit.’ “Sorry we’re so late,” Dinah said. “We had a situation at home. Greggy’s getting a tooth.” 

“Yeah?” Dwight reached out and booped Greggy’s nose. Already, it looked like he would end up with Dinah’s Derensky nose instead of Boaz’s incongruous Irish button. “You teething, little guy? Is he old enough to be teething?” Babies were not his area of expertise, even if he and Noah did treat Kosher and Chazzer like their children, Noah much more than Dwight. Dwight would stick to that, even if Noah did say - _falsely_ \- that he was as much of a doting father to Kosher as Noah himself was. That was, in his opinion, a bald-faced lie. 

“He’s six months old,” Dinah said. “Bottom tooth in the front, if you want to look.” 

“I don’t think I want to risk it,” said Dwight. Greggy screwed up his face and started to fuss again, prompting Boaz to give him a teething ring. Greggy immediately grabbed it and clamped down. “Yeah, see? He’d bite my nose.” 

Boaz laughed. “Got Dwight’s nose, eh, Greggy?” he said, and kissed the top of the baby’s head. “Got my hair and Dwight’s nose. Ah, look at that, Dee. He’s tryin’ to kick me in the thighs.” 

“Enough with Daddy’s thighs, kiddo,” said Dinah, and whipped her head over to look at the front of the room, where Omer was loudly – and repeatedly – clearing his throat. “Okay, looks like the service is starting. Let’s hope he can be quiet until Omer’s done.” 

Apart from one point where Greggy made a loud enough noise that Omer stopped chanting altogether and stared him down for a few seconds, the service went off without any more hitches than normal (namely, Benny clattering around noisily in the kitchen). Dwight was still glad when it was over and he could raise his cup of grape juice for the _Kiddush_. “Staring contest with a baby,” he said, and poked Boaz in the side. “Nice. Omer has issues.” 

“I thought he liked kids,” Boaz said. “He’s great with Galil and Geula.” 

“He likes kids, but not when he thinks they’re Viet Cong,” Dinah answered. She smiled and hid a sudden snicker behind her hand. “Okay, that was too far.” 

“Yeah, but it was funny,” Phil said. “Omer just likes Galil and Geula. I think he needs Greggy to shake him up. Huh?” He looked around like Hades in _Hercules_ , which Noah had made Dwight watch with him on a rainy afternoon last week, and looked from family member to family member. “No one else wants that?” He subsided into an exaggerated pout. “Dang.” 

Fifteen-year-olds didn’t know a thing about humor. Unless he grew into his uncle’s cracked sense of it, Phil would probably improve as he got older. But speaking – or thinking – of which, Dwight realized he hadn’t gotten a chance to interact with Theo yet. “Where’s Theo? He hasn’t said hi yet. Oh, thanks.” He took the chunk of challah that Caleb passed his way. 

“Theo’s over there.” Dinah pointed to the table closest to the food. Theo and Bill sat there alone, Theo’s face like thunder, Bill’s still stuck in the Joker’s expression. Whatever the hell was wrong with them, Dwight wished they could hold off on expressing it during a _party_. “I wish he’d come over here,” Dinah continued after they’d said the _Motzi_ and dug into their challah. 

Boaz shrugged. “He’s bein’ a pill. Bad luck for the rest of us.” 

“He’s not just being a pill,” Dwight replied. “There’s something wrong with him. I’ve known Theo for…sixteen years, that’s right.” Was he really that old? He didn’t _feel_ old. “He doesn’t act like a dick on purpose. He’s been like this for a while. There has to be something going on.” 

“I don’t want to think about it,” said Caleb. “Can we get food now? Please?” 

Dwight bit into his challah. “Yeah, you guys should go ahead. I’ll wait until the line dies down. Except, wait.” He touched Noah’s arm as Noah got up. “If there’s really good dessert, get some for me, okay? Screw saving room for cake. I always have room for cake.” 

“Me, too,” said Boaz. “I don’t feel like redistributin’ Greggy here. Get me a plate, Dee? Love ye.” 

“Sure,” Dinah said, and kissed his cheek. Then the table got up en masse to join the line in front of Benny’s delicious-smelling food, leaving Boaz and Dwight all but alone. Greggy didn’t really count as a full person yet, since he probably couldn’t understand anything they said. He was also still gumming his chew toy, so his concentration was probably off, too. 

_Okay, no cop analysis on a kid_ , Dwight reminded himself. Greggy wouldn’t be old enough to cause trouble for at least five years, and that was only because he had Phil and Caleb for brothers. “How’s he been sleeping?” he asked. “He looks well-rested, but you...” The purple circles under Boaz’s eyes made him look like his name should be Bozo, as in The Clown. 

“He’s slept through the night a couple of times,” Boaz said, “but not all the time. Fussy, he is. Aren’t ye fussy, Greggy? Ooh, he got my finger!” Greggy grasped Boaz’s hand in both of his and gnawed furiously, his serious little brows furrowed. “Just like your mam, aren’t ye?” Boaz cooed. “Likes her Lifesavers, Dee does.” 

“Accounting’s a hard job,” Dwight said. “I couldn’t do it. I’d probably need more than Lifesavers.” 

Dinah, Noah, and the boys came back a few minutes later with loaded plates, all of which smelled fantastic. “Got you some food,” Noah said as he put a plate down in front of Dwight. “Dinner and dessert. You love roasted potatoes, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, I do.” Dwight picked up the plastic fork that Noah had considerately grabbed for him and dug in. “Brisket and chicken,” he said through a mouthful. “Theo’s a lucky birthday boy.” 

“And pumpkin bars,” Noah pointed out. “You’re really lucky I didn’t eat all of them. They’re my super-favorite.” 

“Birthday cake is my super-favorite,” said Caleb, also with his mouth full. Dinah gave him a dirty look, which he ignored. “I like lemon cake. Is that weird? Phil says it’s weird.” 

Phil shoved a whole chunk of potato in his mouth. “That’s ‘cause it _is_ weird. You’re statistically a freak, Caleb.” He widened his eyes at the laser gazes from his mother and brother, and Dwight smiled. “Don’t blame me! I’m the one taking AP Stats. You can’t shoot the messenger.” 

“I can ground the messenger,” said Dinah. “Shut your pie hole.” 

Dwight wouldn’t have been able to argue with that in his place, and wisely, Phil shut up and ate like the rest of them. For a few minutes, Dwight couldn’t even open his mouth for more than shoving food in, it was that good. He hadn’t had brisket that melted in his mouth like that since before his mother started buying her Shabbat dinners from the kosher caterer. And as for those pumpkin bars, well, he was going to have to take some home. “It’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited,” he blurted out after he’d finished devouring his first one. 

Caleb snickered. “Nice, Dwight.” 

Noah elbowed him hard. “Yeah, watch it. You’re around kids, not just me.” 

Everyone was a critic tonight. Dwight grunted and polished off his second pumpkin bar, but it wasn’t enough. “I need more,” he said. “Gonna go up and get some. Do you want any, Noah? Any more, you guys?” 

“Wish I could give some to Greggy here,” said Boaz. Greggy was indeed making grabby motions at the dessert on his father’s plate. “But we’ve just started him on rice cereal and I don’t think he’s ready for orange poo yet.” 

“He’s already had orange poo,” said Dinah. “Remember when _someone_ gave him Cheerios?” Her staredown was with Caleb this time, and Caleb broke a lot easier than Phil, casting his eyes down at the table. 

“I thought he was ready,” he said. “And he didn’t get hurt, right? Don’t get mad at me.” 

Dinah reached over and pulled Greggy’s hand away from Boaz’s dessert. “No, he didn’t get hurt. Just got weird for the person changing his diapers,” she added, “namely, yours truly. Greggy, don’t put your hand in there.” 

“Too late,” Boaz said. Greggy held up his hand and stared at it in rapture, then abruptly moved to shove it in his mouth. “Greggy, no, that’s too much sugar for you t’have yet.” He stood up, baby in arms, and leaned over Dinah. “All right, I’m takin’ him to the loo. Got to have a wash, haven’t we? Aye, we have. I’ll be back in a few.” 

He got up and took Greggy, now squalling at being parted from his interesting square of orange squishiness, out of the room. “Poor kid,” Dwight said, shaking his head. “He’s too young to learn that you can’t always have dessert.” 

“I had to learn that when I was his age,” said Noah. “Did you know your stomach’s still growling?” 

“Oh. It is?” Dwight rubbed his stomach, which growled. “You’re right. Okay, I’m going up for more pumpkin bars.” 

“You do that.” Noah kissed his shoulder. 

As lack of luck would have it, as soon as Dwight went back up to the food tables and started piling his plate with pumpkin bars, Benny and Bill interrupted the general chatter in the room (and his acquisition of dessert) by first flicking the lights on and off – courtesy of Bill – and then wheeling a huge-ass cake on a tray out into the center of the social hall. “It’s time for birthday cake,” Bill announced, even though everyone in the room could obviously tell it was a fucking birthday cake. “Theo, come here. We’ll light the candles and then blow them out.” 

Dwight left the pumpkin bars where they were and silently went back to his table, then watched Theo get up and lumber over to the cake. With that same manic energy he’d displayed when everyone came in, Bill quickly lit the candles and turned off the lights. The front of the room lit up with an eerily bright glow that could only come from forty-plus birthday candles; Bill learly hadn’t been firing on all cylinders when he decided to put in a candle for every year on a night when hungry children were present. 

Theo bore the singing of the birthday song with an absolutely expressionless face, including Omer’s shout at the end of “Skip around the room! Skip around the room! We won’t shut up until you skip around the room!” He made a liar out of himself about two seconds later and shut up when Theo looked at him hard enough. “Gevalt,” he muttered, and subsided. 

“Time to blow out the candles!” Bill clapped his hands. “Make a wish, Theo.” 

Theo closed his eyes and immediately blew out the candles. No time for a wish there. All right, Dwight was going to have a talk with him after the party wound down. “Let’s eat,” he said after he’d opened his eyes, in a hoarse voice that made him sound like he either had laryngitis or had been licking someone’s dirty ashtray. “Time to cut the cake, Bill? I can do it.” He picked up a cake-cutter from where it rested next to the cake, but before he could do anything, Bill took it from him. 

“Theo,” he said, “before we have any cake, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.” He took a moment to nod his head hard and give an audible gulp. “It’s for…for your own good. I’m making it your birthday present, too.” 

Theo took a few measured steps backward, shrinking into an undeniably defensive position. “What, Bill?” His brows furrowed just like his nephew’s, but on him, the expression was much more serious. Scary, too, if you didn’t know Theo.

Bill looked around the room; not a single person said anything, Dwight included – he was keeping his mouth shut until this was finished. Slowly, Bill put his hand in his pocket and drew out a handful of what looked like rough confetti, which he put into Theo’s palm. Theo’s fingers closed over it. “Happy birthday, Theo. I’ve broken your spell.” 

Theo brought his hand up to his face. “Wait. What’s this?” 

Bill rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “It’s your research, Theo.” 

The confetti fell from Theo’s hand. Still frowning, he blinked at it, then at Bill. “I’m sorry, _what?_ ” 

“Benny,” said Bill in an undertone, “hit the lights.” As they snapped back on, he squared his legs, put his hands on his hips, and took a deep breath like a brawler getting ready to either punch or be punched. “Your research is gone, Theo. I gave the books away and your papers are shredded.” He sucked in another breath. “Everything off your computer is deleted. So are the backups. I know about Smaug, Theo. He’s been twisting you around, maybe trying to get you to publicly embarrass yourself, I don’t know, but that’s done –“ 

Theo held up one hand in a ‘stop’ motion before him. “You. Did. What.” 

Geula whimpered somewhere nearby, and one of her parents, Dwight couldn’t tell which, hurriedly shushed her. “It’s all gone, Theo,” said Bill. “This was Smaug’s fault.” His voice sped up, with every word coming faster and faster. “I’m breaking you out of this right now, all right? It’s done. I won’t let him feed this obsession anymore –“ 

“You destroyed my _research!_ ” Theo roared, and at his sides, his hands clenched into fists. He stumbled towards Bill, awkward as Frankenstein’s monster and a thousand times angrier, but stopped a few feet before him. “You – you – you fucking rat, William Baggins! Fucking Oxfordshire rat!” 

“It’s got nothing to do with that!” 

Theo cast his eyes wildly around the room, fists still clenched, every hair on his head seeming to stand up. “You betrayed me!” 

Bill crossed his arms. “I did.” 

“You know how long I worked on that? Everything it meant to my family? You _knew!_ I know I told you!” Theo’s voice rose in both volume and pitch from a roar to a scream. Dwight half-rose from his chair, but Theo made no more moves towards Bill. “If this place had towers or – or ramparts, I’d throw you off them!” 

“Theo, please!” Now Bill approached him tentatively with his hands clasped in front of him, the classic Christian penitent from one of the history books Theo had shown Dwight, only in a room full of people who didn’t believe anyone needed to be saved. Oh, God. Maybe they’d all been wrong about him. “This was making you sick!” 

“You’re making me die,” Theo said. For once, he didn’t shake his head and amend his sentence to something that made sense. Dwight stood up and put one hand on the table, ready to lever himself towards the two of them. “Fuck you, Bill. I’m…this is…it’s done.” His hands suddenly shot into his hair and yanked hard; he cried out in pain, then straightened, pulled off his wedding ring, and threw it at the floor. 

Freddy let out a shriek of fear, or maybe pain. “No! Uncle Theo!” 

Theo shook his head. “I’m gone,” he said. Then he turned around and ran out of the social hall, feet thudding on the floor, so fast that Dwight saw his hair fly. What felt like a second later, the telltale screech of rubber in the parking lot told the truth: he was indeed gone. 

“No, no, Uncle Theo!” Freddy was sobbing now. “Uncle _Slomo!_ ” He stumbled out of his seat and fell onto the floor in front of Bill, where he picked up Theo’s ring and clutched it against his chest. “You can’t do that. It’s illegal!” 

“Freddy…Freddy, love, no.” Bilbo knelt on the floor and put his arms around him, but he’d begun to sob, too. “Freddy, it’s not illegal. Don’t cry, it’ll be – it’ll be.” He gulped, but gagged as whatever he’d been about to say next got stuck in his throat. 

That was when Dwight unfroze, and so did everyone else. “You two stay here,” he said. “Danny, keep an eye on them. I’ll go scout out your house, see if he went home.” 

Dinah pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “I’ll call that frenemy of his. Greenwood.” 

“Sima and I’ll go around to the school,” Gad volunteered. “He’s probably at work.” 

He then turned to his brother, but Omer was very clearly not in the mood. He clapped his hands over his ears, gave a quiet “Goddammit,” and ran. 

Gad made no move to run after him, which under any other circumstance would have prompted a speedy ‘what the fuck’ from Dwight, but he seemed to anticipate that. “PTSD,” he said quietly, glancing at Dwight. “He can’t handle it when this kind of stuff goes down.” 

“It’s my fault!” Bill cried, rocking Freddy back and forth. “I’m the one who went into his study, I’m the one who gave him the bloody Valium. I shouldn’t have done anything!” 

“ _Valium?_ ” said Noah. “Wait, Bill, you drugged him?” 

Bill wiped the back of his hand across his face. “Yes,” he said. “It was a good reason. Smaug’s been contacting him this whole time, and he’s –“ 

“You son of a bitch! Fuckin’ son of a _bitch!_ ” Noah lunged towards Bill, and only Dwight’s police reflexes saved Bill from getting punched as he first grabbed Noah’s shirt and then put him in a headlock. “You drugged a crazy person – I should _kill_ you!” 

Dwight pulled hard on Noah’s arms and grunted. Noah was getting too damn strong. “Noah, cut that shit out.” Noah struggled hard against him, limbs flailing. “Noah, stop it. Noah. _Sheket!_ ” he bellowed. 

Abruptly, Noah stopped struggling. Dwight blessed the day they’d decided to use Hebrew commands with the dogs, and sent another one to Pavlov, that animal-obsessed old fart, for showing him how to break a human being out of a rage. “That’s better,” Dwight said. “Danny, take him home with you and Oreet.” He waited for an affirmation, but nothing rose up out of the chatter behind him. “Danny?” 

“Here,” Danny said. Dwight piloted Noah around in the direction of his voice and found Danny with Oreet clinging tightly to him, tears running down her face. That poor kid. “I’ll take him. Noah, don’t you dare attack anyone. Can I trust you?” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Noah muttered. Dwight tightened his hold. “Fine. I said _fine_ , Dwight. Let go of me.” Dwight opened his arms and released him, and true to his reluctant word, he joined his siblings’ group hug by clinging to Danny’s side like a giant barnacle. 

“Oi, what’s goin’ on?” Boaz poked his head in at the door. “What in the name of Maggie Thatcher’s decomposin’ corpse happened in here? Someone drop a bomb?” 

Dinah marched over to him and grabbed him by the arm very hard, if his wince signified anything. “This isn’t the time for humor, Boaz,” she snapped. “My brother’s just gone off the damn deep end. You want to help? Then help!” 

“What?” Boaz blinked. “Jaysis.” 

“His fucking _husband_ gave him Valium and went into his study and then he thought it was a good idea to destroy all his research,” Dinah said, “and Smaug has something to do with it. I didn’t catch everything. Can you take the boys home? I have to call Theo’s work friend.” 

“Oh, um, sure.” Boaz touched first Phil, then Caleb on the shoulder with the hand that wasn’t busy holding Greggy. “All right, you two, come on. Caleb?” Caleb, thousand-yard stare at about a hundred watts, had his thumb shoved in his mouth. “Oi, there. Come on, let’s get ye home. We’ll have a hot chocolate or something, eh? Come on.” He squeezed Caleb’s shoulder and began to walk towards the door, and silently, both Phil and Caleb followed him. 

Fucking Margaret Thatcher. Helpful as Boaz was, he had a horrible sense of both humor and timing. “Danny, go home,” he said. “Omer - no, wait, Gad - take the kids, and Galil, you don’t get to go, so shut up before you get in trouble.” He turned in a circle, feeling himself shift hard into police procedure. No way was he getting any sleep tonight. “Benny, is Bram okay?” Bram hadn’t moved from his chair, but he wasn’t always predictable when stuff started getting really intense. 

Benny peered into Bram’s face and patted his hand. “Bram’s okay,” he said. “I’ll take him home, if that’s all the same to you.” 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Dwight said, rubbing his forehead. Oh, this was a headache. Good thing it was dark or he might not be able to see. “Okay, I’m driving out. Let’s get this moving, guys. I want to find him before anything happens to him.” 

Dinah already had her phone against her ear, and now she held up a finger. “Hey, quiet while I talk,” she said. “Sorry, Randall. Have you seen Theo? Okay, no, so where are you?” She paused. “It’s bad. Bill shredded all his research documents or something and now he’s stormed out. I think there’s something wrong with his head. So is he with you? No. Fuck.” She shook her head and held the phone away from her ear. “Randall hasn’t seen him.” 

“Dammit,” said Dwight. “That’s out.” 

“We’re going,” Danny said. “Come on, Noah. Oreet, come with me.” 

Noah walked away without complaint, but as they reached the door, he turned and gave Bill the bloodthirstiest look Dwight had ever seen. This was not the face of his husband, but the face of a scrappy, juvie-hopping, homeless kid who knew damn well what a shiv was and just how to use it. This was a man, he realized, who was fully capable of cold-blooded murder. Shivers raced up his back and he held his arm up in front of his face to see it covered with goosebumps. “Bye, Noah,” he said quietly. “I love you, okay?” 

“Yeah, love you,” Noah murmured, eyes toward the floor. “See you later, Dwight.” 

“Hey.” Danny shook him. “Snap out of it. Time to go.” 

Dinah held up her whole hand this time as they left; the similarity to her brother’s last gesture made Dwight’s stomach drop. “Randall says Bill and Freddy can stay with him tonight,” she said. “Bill, are you okay with that?” Bill nodded, tears still running down his face, and Freddy whimpered. “Yeah, Randall,” she said into the phone, “they’ll do it. I’ll take them over to their place for clothes after Dwight checks it out.” 

“Theo – w-wouldn’t hurt me,” Bill got out. “He didn’t here. I don’t think he could.” 

Bill had a point. When worst came to worst, it had been his own body (specifically, the hair he was so proud of) that Theo hurt. “Yeah, I’m mostly going to make sure he hasn’t shut himself in,” said Dwight. “I should go. The cruiser’s parked outside. See you guys later.” He kneaded his own forehead again. “Thank God I was on patrol today.” 

“I’m sure the potheads didn’t appreciate it,” said Gad. 

“Thanks, Gad.” Dwight did another scan of the room – no major problems. “All right, I’m out.” 

The dark streets did help his headache, but Theo wasn’t at home; not even going in with his spare key and casing the whole place made him turn up. The headache came right back at that, and as he got back in the cruiser, Dwight marveled at the fact that he would have done something to put himself in the clink for a good dose of Aleve. Or Fentanyl, whichever came his way first. 

Theo wasn’t at Phil and Caleb’s school, or at Lexington Village – which was closed anyway, so that was a big fat dead end of a pursuit – or at anyone’s house, and driving to all of those places sucked the gas right out of the cruiser. Dwight had to hit a gas station, and while he waited for the car to fill up, he took out his phone, left a message at the police station just in case, and checked his texts. 

_Not here._ That was from Gad. 

_Got Freddy and Bill to Randall’s house. Theo’s still not here._ Dinah. 

_Sorry about the Thatcher joke._ Boaz. Dwight snorted and sent back _Thatcher deserved it_ , which got him a thumbs-up emoticon ten seconds later. 

He took another round of everything except for the Village, even a stop at Wentworth, then another before he thought to take a look at the time. Five AM, dammit, and his eyes could barely stay open. 

“Sorry, Theo,” he said aloud. A sleep-deprived cop was of no use to anyone or anything except his own ego. 

The lights were on in the house when he pulled into his driveway, and Noah opened the door for him before he could even take out his keys. “What the fuck, Noah,” he said, too zonked to even make it a question. “What the fuck.” 

Noah shrugged, using just one shoulder in his usual gesture of ‘I don’t give a flying fuck what you think of me, except I kind of do.’ “Told Danny I needed to go home,” he said. “He said the hell I did, so I went out a window while he was putting Oreet to bed.” 

Of course. “Wait, Oreet’s almost fifteen, isn’t she?” Dwight asked. Noah nodded. “What’s Danny doing, still putting her to bed?” That was when a horrifying thought occurred to him. “Oh, God, does he watch her so she can’t touch herself?” 

“Oh, God, _no!_ ” Noah nearly shouted, his face contorting into a look of utter disgust. “He just put her to bed tonight! She asked him to! Ugh, Dwight, you think he’d get on anyone’s ass about masturbation when our mom…” 

“Stop right there,” said Dwight. Noah had spilled the horrifying story about what his mother did to Danny about a month after their wedding, and even now, Dwight’s stomach wanted to revolt upon reminder of that particular molestation case. Some people deserved to rot in hell. 

“Yeah,” said Noah quietly. “Bill’s one of ‘em.” 

“ _Noah_.” 

Noah bared his teeth. “He drugged a _crazy person_ ,” he insisted. “Anyone could see Theo’s crazy, especially me. Crazy knows crazy. You don’t take away someone’s ability to…I don’t even know.” He rubbed his eyes. “Dwight, you look like you’ll keel over any second. I’m putting you to bed.” 

“You’re turning into your brother.” 

Noah’s eyes opened wide. “God, I am. I need weed now.” 

“No, you don’t.” But Dwight still smiled. 

“Yeah, I do. I’m turning into my brother. I need weed.” Noah put his arm around Dwight’s waist. “I’m putting you to bed now, okay? You’re not getting out of bed until I say so.” 

Arguing would be pointless, so Dwight let Noah lead him to their room and tuck him in. “Hey, Kosher,” he said as a certain bristly someone came out from under the bed. Kosher grunted and, as expected, hopped onto the bed with way more finesse than a hundred-fifty-pound hoofed mammal should have displayed. 

“Kosher wants a cuddle,” Noah told him, very unnecessarily, since Kosher had apparently decided to head-butt Dwight until he got a scratch. “I’m gonna go make eggs. Shovel some down your throat if you think you’re getting out of bed.” 

“Sure,” said Dwight, turning his face into the pillow. “Noah.” Time to bring up the elephant in the room. 

“Yeah?” 

He pushed Kosher’s inquisitive head away. “If you knew Theo was crazy, why the hell didn’t you say anything?” 

Noah gave a very Danny-like sigh. “Crazy knows crazy,” he repeated. “That doesn’t mean anyone listens to it.” 

Despite his police career, Dwight knew well that Noah had already seen more crazy than he himself would see in a lifetime. “Point,” he said. “Okay, I’m going to sleep.” 

He woke at one point for the eggs Noah had promised, and once more when Chazzer decided to get on the bed next to him and Kosher (after her walkies, if the chill of her fur was anything to go by). Otherwise, though, sleep just kept pulling and pulling at him, and wouldn’t let go until Noah shook his shoulder. 

“Phone, Dwight,” he said. “It’s the chief.” 

“Charlie?” Dwight sat straight up in bed, blinking the sand out of his eyes. “Give me the phone.” Noah handed it over without a word. “What is it?” 

“They found your friend,” said his boss, and his heart froze in his chest, unsure whether to leap or sink. “He’s at the hospital.” 

Theo was _safe_. God, but was he hurt? “Is he okay?” 

“He’s alive,” she said. “They just transferred him to Veterans’ from someplace in Boston. He’s in the psych ward.” 

His face must have shown something horrifying, because Noah put a hand on his shoulder. “What?” he whispered. 

“Psych ward,” Dwight said. “Theo’s in it.” 

Noah nodded. “Knew it,” he said, but there was no satisfaction in his face or voice. 

Dwight put the phone back against his ear. “Sorry, Charlie. Told my husband. What the hell’s going on with Theo?” 

“Psych ward,” she said. “I just told you. Dwight, they found him in one of the Jewish cemeteries in Boston.” 

Somewhere in Dwight’s brain, that made sense, but most of it just felt like a fucking slug. How long had he been asleep? “What?” 

“He was next to his parents’ graves,” the chief said, and that was when Dwight came awake in a painful, freezing rush. “Dwight, he tried to bury himself alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What do we say to the god of death? Not today" is a reference to A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.


	27. For I Am Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven points of view, seven lives disrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: memories of war and child abuse. Also, Freddy says things about psych wards that aren't in very good taste, but he's seven and doesn't know better.

i.

Uncle Theo’s ring didn’t look as shiny on Freddy’s finger as it did on Uncle Theo’s. Freddy turned it this way and that under the light of his bedside lamp, trying to get it to gleam, but it just looked dull and dead. Freddy stuck out his lower lip and squeezed his eyes shut. Uncle Theo wasn’t dead; he just wanted to be dead, and that was why he was in the hospital.

He wanted to die when he had Freddy, and Uncle Bill, and maybe a baby if Auntie Dee would help Uncle Bill turn his seeds into one. Uncle Bill said it was all his fault, but Freddy _knew_ deep down that he was why Uncle Theo wanted to die. He wasn’t a good enough nephew. His stomach knotted up and he punched his fist into it, but all that did was make it hurt more. 

Freddy sighed, wiped his eyes on his hand, and curled up on the bed. Being here was better than staying another night at Mr. Randy’s house, even though it wasn’t a whole lot better. Mr. Randy and Alice didn’t have any cats, and there wasn’t anyone for Freddy to play with because their son was at a sleepover, and their house smelled like leather couches. Here he had Rug and Carpet, and Uncle Bill when he wasn’t crying in his room. 

But he _was_ crying. That meant Freddy couldn’t cry. Uncle Bill was already sad and making him take care of him would be really rude. “Rug?” Freddy said. The name came out all wobbly. “Do you want a cuddle?” 

No Rug. He’d gone off maybe ten minutes ago. Freddy thought it was to use the poo box when he left. Now, he knew Rug just wanted to get away from him. “Carpet?” he tried. No Carpet, either, so he wasn’t Carpet’s favorite anymore. 

His stomach tightened again, then gurgled. “Hungry,” Freddy whispered. “I’m hungry.” He rubbed his eyes against his pillow, which was a lot nicer than his gross dry hand, and sniffled. There were probably some granola bars or something in the kitchen that he could eat without needing Uncle Bill to turn on the stove. _Uncle Theo likes granola bars_ , he suddenly thought, and curled up tighter as his stomach cramped. 

A few more minutes and the hunger would go away. He could take a nap then. That would keep him from bothering Uncle Bill. 

Freddy closed his eyes and waited; when he opened them again, it had only been five minutes, and he was still hungry. Okay. Maybe Uncle Bill had stopped crying by now. He sat up, but had to grab his head in his hands right away when the room started to spin in front of him. 

He hated hated _hated_ being seven. Older kids could use the stove, but not him. Now he had to go distract Uncle Bill from himself, like Mr. Randy said, just to get some food. 

Freddy closed his eyes most of the way and kept his fingers crossed all the way to his uncles’ room. It still didn’t do any good. Uncle Bill was sitting on the bed, a fist over his mouth, tears running down to his chin. In his other hand, he held his phone. “Uncle Bill?” Freddy said. “Are you better?” _Stupid_. He wasn’t better if he was still crying. Greggy could’ve figured that out and he didn’t even use a spoon yet. 

Uncle Bill snapped his head up, making a gulping sound in his throat that sounded like the beginning of more crying. “Freddy,” he said, “how long have you been there?” 

“Just now,” Freddy said. He looked down at the floor and sucked his lower lip into his mouth to chew on. “I’m really sorry, Uncle Bill, I’m just hungry. Don’t…don’t be mad? Please?” 

“Why would I – no. No, I’m not mad, of course I’m not.” Uncle Bill sniffled. “Come on, Freddy, look at me. You said you’re hungry?” 

“Yeah.” Freddy chewed on his lip with his canines – which was a very weird name for them, because cats had _much_ pointier teeth than dogs did – and finally looked up. Uncle Bill’s wet, red face made him want to put his head right back down. “Can you do the microwave?” 

Uncle Bill wiped his face with one hand and put his phone down with the other one. “Yes, sure. What do you have there, Freddy? In your hand.” 

Freddy squeezed his fingers into a fist. “Oh. Uncle Theo’s ring.” 

Uncle Bill’s lip wobbled and he pinched the top of his nose. Freddy closed his eyes and put the ring on his right pointer finger. Uncle Theo should have been home to wear the ring so that Uncle Bill wouldn’t have spent all afternoon crying, only he was in the crazy house and maybe he was never coming out and it was _his fault_. 

“Freddy,” said Uncle Bill, “I’m not angry. It’s only…I thought I lost it. Forgot to pick it up.” 

“But Uncle Theo threw it.” How could you forget a ring when someone threw it at you? No, Uncle Theo had thrown it at the floor. Freddy shook his head slowly. Probably you only picked up a ring if it was coming at your head. 

“I was rather frazzled,” Uncle Bill said, and patted the bed next to him. “Here, love, sit next to me.” Freddy scrambled up onto the high bed, and Uncle Bill put his arm around him. “Have you been feeling all right? Should I pay you more attention today?” 

Freddy leaned into Uncle Bill’s side, wiping his face on his shirt. Uncle Bill’s shirt felt nice on his nose, all soft. “It’s okay, Uncle,” he said. “I’m just hungry. I don’t need more attention.” That was a white lie, like the ones Uncle Theo said it was okay to tell people when the truth would only hurt their feelings. He wanted Uncle Bill to lie down in his bed with him even though it was the daytime and he didn’t have nightmares, cuddle him, and call the kitties over so they could all cuddle, too. He could maybe call today sort of a nightmare. 

Uncle Bill rubbed his back, and Freddy could hear and feel him sniffling. “You’ve been a good boy, Freddy,” he said, “so good.” He hiccupped loudly. “I don’t deserve a nephew like you. Just…thank you so much.” 

“You deserve me,” said Freddy. “I mean…no, you don’t, I mean…I’m not trying to be braggy,” he finished. “I mean you’re not a bad person.” 

His uncle chuckled. “Of course you can brag,” he said. “You’re a fine little lad.” 

“Oh.” Freddy uncurled his fist and looked down at the ring in his palm. “Uncle Bill,” he said, “you should have this. You’re Uncle Theo’s husband.” 

Uncle Bill took his hand, but then he let go. “No,” he said, “you should keep it. You found it and I didn’t, and I…I was bad to Uncle Theo. I was a bad husband.” 

Freddy slipped the ring onto his thumb. “How?” It felt heavy, not cool like earlier, but warm from his hand, and it hung off his knuckle. “You give him tea all the time and you cuddle him.” 

Uncle Bill let out another hiccup; this one sounded like it tore up his chest on the way out. “Oh, God,” he said. “Damn. I’m so sorry, Freddy, that wasn’t your fault. Tea, f – dammit. God.” He rested his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands. “I buggered up everything.” 

“Those are swears,” Freddy said. “Auntie Dee says you shouldn’t say them when I can hear.” He took the ring off and touched it to the back of one of Uncle Bill’s hands. “Please take it, Uncle. It’s sort of yours. Uncle Theo loves you.” 

Uncle Bill shook his head against his palms. “He won’t when he comes back.” 

“Oh! He’s coming back?” The heaviness in Freddy’s chest suddenly lightened. “I thought you can’t come out of the crazy house all the time.” He touched his chin with his fingers; sometimes that helped him think. “I mean hospital. Is it hospital?” 

“Psych ward,” Uncle Bill choked. “Psychiatric. It’s for people who have…sicknesses in their head.” 

“Like cancer?” Freddy asked. “Uncle Theo doesn’t have brain cancer, does he?” He pulled on Uncle Bill’s arm. “He doesn’t, right?” You didn’t survive brain cancer. It ate up your brain and you went blind, then you went deaf, and then you died. That was what had happened to Pip and Merry’s grandpa last year. 

Uncle Bill made another noise; this one sounded a little like a laugh. “No, not brain cancer,” he said. “Something else. It makes him, ah, too much.” 

“Too much what?” Auntie Dee sometimes said Phil and Caleb were too much.

“Not sure.” Uncle Bill sat back up, rubbing his eyes with both fists like Sam. “Please keep the ring. It might make you feel better.” 

“ _No_ ,” Freddy said. “It’s not mine. It’s yours.” He tapped Uncle Bill’s hand with the ring again. “He’s my uncle, but he’s your husband. I wouldn’t have it if he was dead or something.” Uncle Theo wanted to be dead. That didn’t make him dead, and he was coming home from the psychotic ward. Then he could have his ring back. But now Freddy had it and that was stealing, and thinking about Uncle Theo dying put a hot, tight feeling in his stomach all over again. 

With a sigh, Uncle Bill took his handkerchief off the bedtable and used it to blow his nose, then held out his hand. “All right,” he said. “I’ll take Uncle Theo’s ring. You’re…you’re a good boy.” 

“You already said that,” said Freddy. He clutched the ring in his fist; suddenly, he didn’t want to give it back. Uncle Bill’s hands were all gross now. “You’ve got to wash your hands after you do that.” 

“I’m not ill,” said Uncle Bill, letting out another almost-laugh. “Come on, then.” 

“Okay,” Freddy said quietly. He squeezed the ring one more time until he could feel his heartbeat – it was from his thumb, Uncle Bill had taught him when he was little, but he could pretend that it was Uncle Theo’s heartbeat, even if he was too old to believe that. “Here it is.” He slowly opened his fist and, even though he didn’t know why, looked away as he dropped it into Uncle Bill’s hand. 

Uncle Bill hugged him right away. Freddy cuddled against his chest and buried his nose in his sweater; he smelled like soap, just like always. “You’re such a good boy,” he said. “So good. So clever.” With both hands, he rubbed Freddy’s back up and down, then in circles. “Would you like me to give you a present, Freddy?” 

“Yes,” said Freddy. “I like presents.” 

“Everyone does.” Uncle Bill gave him a squeeze, let go, and walked over to his closet. “I was going to give this to you for Christmas,” he said as he bent over and rummaged on the floor, “but I think you might like to have it now. It’s a bit big so you can grow into it.” 

Freddy crossed his legs under himself. “Oh, is it clothes? I like your knitting!” Uncle Bill made him the best sweaters. Pip always got jealous when he wore a new one to school, so Freddy told him that he could have one if he paid for it. It wouldn’t be fair to Uncle Bill to make a free one for someone he didn’t know so well. 

“Yes, it is. Good guess.” Uncle Bill came back up, a package wrapped with Christmas paper in his hands. “Here we are.” He put the package in Freddy’s lap and sat beside him, then put an arm around Freddy’s back. “Go on, open it.” 

Freddy tried to be careful with the paper, but it tore anyway. If the sweater inside hadn’t been so pretty, maybe he would have been upset, but it was and he wasn’t. “Uncle Bill!” He held the sweater up. “It’s a grown-up sweater!” Lamplight shone through the silver yarn, and even though it was soft, for a second he could imagine it was chain mail. “Skinny yarn! You use that for grown-ups.” 

“I do, I do.” Uncle Bill chuckled. “You’re old enough for silk blend now, I think. Seven whole years old, imagine.” He patted Freddy’s back. “Now that’s why I made it large – it took longer to make. Fingering weight. You’ll take good care of this jumper, won’t you?” 

“I will.” Freddy stood up and wiggled the sweater down over his T-shirt. He could see Uncle Bill through it, watching him with a tiny, sad smile. “It’s lacy, Uncle. I like it. Thank you!” Once he had it on, he ran back to the bed and hugged Uncle Bill as tightly as he could. Uncle Bill did an ‘oof’ and Freddy pulled back a little. “Sorry, Uncle. Did it hurt?” 

“No,” said Uncle Bill. “Are you still hungry?” 

Freddy put both hands over his stomach. “Now I am! Why’d you have to say it?” His stomach grumbled, the kind of noise that Boaz said was evil. Sometimes he said his stomach was about to eat itself when it gurgled like that, and if he went to go get something to eat, Freddy got some, too. “Can we go downstairs?” 

Uncle Bill nodded. “Just…will you hold my hand? Please?” 

Freddy grabbed his hand and held it hard. Probably he was too old to hold hands like a baby, but Uncle Bill needed him to do it tonight. He could have probably seen that if he shut his eyes, even. “Okay. I love you.” 

“I love you, too, Freddy,” said Uncle Bill, and squeezed back. 

Downstairs in the dark kitchen, someone meowed as soon as they got in and ran towards them like a shadow. Uncle Bill felt for the light and flipped it on. “Hello, Rug,” he said. “Are you angry at us for not feeding you?” 

“Rug’s always angry,” said Freddy, and jumped in place as something started to rub against his legs. “Here’s Carpet. Carpet, you were bad. You didn’t cuddle with me.” 

“No, love, Carpet’s not bad,” Uncle Bill said. “Sometimes kitties just don’t want to cuddle.” He made that gulp again, the crying one, and picked Carpet up. “All right, Carpet, who wants some food? I’ll feed you and Rug now.” 

“I’ll wait over here,” said Freddy. He chose his favorite chair at the table and sat down, watching Rug watch him. Rug’s green eyes sometimes glowed all creepy, but not now with the light on. “I’m hungry, but we feed you first,” he told him. “The Torah says so.” 

Rug drew back his lips, but didn’t hiss. “Rug,” Uncle Bill called, “I have your food,” and then Rug trotted off. Wet food was better for kitties, Uncle Theo said, but Carpet didn’t like it, so he got dry food. That meant that Rug ate dry food and wet food, got really fat, and confused the vet because he was healthy. Uncle Theo laughed about it every time he took Rug for a checkup. _Hey, stinky boy, the vet says you’re a fat boy. Good fat boy. That’s Daddy’s good fat sack a’ crap. Ah, God, it’s like hanging on to a truck._

“Good truck,” Freddy whispered. “Uncle Bill?” 

“Yes?” 

“Can we take the kitties to see Uncle Theo? He needs Rug.” His eyes started to sting and a lump came up in his throat, so he held his head in his hands like Uncle Bill. “He needs his fat sack of crap to get better. Rug needs him, too. He’ll go meow without Uncle.” 

“Oh, God,” said Uncle Bill, and sat next to him at the table. “Yes. I need to try to take that little bleeder to the hospital. I mean, that is, if Theo will even see me.” 

Freddy scooted his chair closer so that he could rest his head on Uncle Bill’s shoulder without falling over. “He will,” he said. “He yelled, but he loves you.” 

“I did something bad,” said Uncle Bill with a sigh. “I’m not sure he will. Are you still hungry?” 

“Mm-hm. Really hungry.” Freddy held his stomach again. “I’m gonna go see what kind of food we have.” 

Uncle Bill came with him, and the two of them stood in front of the open fridge while the kitties crunched and slurped their food behind them. “What looks good?” Uncle Bill asked. “We’ve got some leftover spaghetti and meatballs from Thursday. Would you like that?” 

The spaghetti had been really good when they had it the other night, but now, thinking about having it in his mouth just made Freddy’s stomach turn over. “No,” he said. “I mean no thank you. It doesn’t look good, anything in there.” He didn’t want vegetables or rice or pasta. They’d probably just come up on the floor. 

“Then what sounds good?” 

Freddy looked over at the freezer half of the fridge. “Ice cream,” he said. “Ice cream for dinner.” 

“Okay,” said Uncle Bill. “Ice cream for dinner it is.” 

“Really?” Freddy clapped his hands together. “You never say yes about that!” 

“Well,” Uncle Bill said, clapping Freddy’s back just as hard, “this is a horrible day and I think we need it. Go sit back down.” 

Freddy did, and then watched Uncle Bill scoop out a _lot_ of ice cream into two bowls, lots of flavors in both. “Oh, yum,” he said when Uncle Bill brought back their dinner. “Uncle Bill, these bowls are really big. What if I don’t finish my ice cream?” He took the spoon that Uncle Bill held out and started eating the flavor on top, which was cookies and cream. 

“I suppose I’ll have to finish it for you, then,” Uncle Bill said, took a spoonful, and then added with his mouth full, “or we could put it back in the freezer.” 

“Uh-huh.” Freddy ate for a while, much more ice cream than he was allowed to have when Uncle Theo wasn’t away in the hospital, and put his spoon down when his mouth started to go numb. “You said you did bad stuff,” he said. “What kind of bad stuff? Uncle Theo will love you even if it’s bad.” 

Uncle Bill put down his spoon, his face suddenly serious. “It was very bad, Freddy,” he said. “I put things in Uncle Theo’s tea to make him sleep. Then I snooped in his study, and I didn’t like what I found there, so I destroyed it.” 

“You destroyed it?” Freddy repeated. “His history stuff?” 

“Yes.” 

“But _why?_ ” he asked. “Why did you do that? It wasn’t your stuff. You shouldn’t have broken his privacy.” Uncle Theo’s stuff was _his_. You didn’t go in there and touch it – everyone knew that. “Is that why his head is sick?” 

Uncle Bill let out a heavy sigh. “Yes,” he said, and his eyes never left the table. “I did it because…you remember Smaug the Terrible, don’t you? We’re putting him in our book.” 

“Yes.” Smaug the Terrible wasn’t a _real_ dragon, but sometimes in his dreams, he came into Freddy’s head and turned into one. Red scales, evil golden eyes, and claws that could shred you into pieces if you got near them – he always woke up sweaty. “What did he do?” 

“He was talking to Uncle Theo,” Uncle Bill said, “trying to make him hurt himself. I had to snap Uncle Theo out of it. I…I just did it the wrong way, and I hurt him very badly.” 

Freddy sucked his lips into his mouth and chewed on their insides. Then, when that hurt, he ate some more ice cream for more time to think. “Smaug was a bad word,” he said, “but you shouldn’t have done that, Uncle. You’ve got to be constructive.” Boaz said that when Phil and Caleb fought. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes they still hit each other until he had to grab them both by their shirts. 

“I do, Freddy.” Uncle Bill closed his eyes and took in one deep breath after another. “I was wrong.” Slowly, he opened his eyes and ran his finger across the tabletop until it met Freddy’s hand. “You’re right. There were better ways.” 

“But you’ll do better?” 

Uncle Bill’s smile stretched across his face like a rubber band about to snap. “I’ll try.”

ii.

Omer hadn’t moved from the couch all day, and going by Galil’s bouncing left leg, Sima wasn’t the only one annoyed by it. “Uncle Omer, I want to change the channel,” her son said. “Can I _please_ have the remote? You’ve had it on the stupid Home Shopping Network all day.”

Shifting in place, Omer grunted and clutched the remote tighter. “You have it all the other days. Cut an old man a break.” 

“Please? I just want to watch something that’s not infomercials.” 

“ _Galil_ ,” said Sima, “drop it. Your uncle’s been through a lot.” She mouthed ‘Vietnam’ at him and hoped desperately that he could both read her lips and take the hint. Omer had shown up here last night, apparently having _run_ all the way from Hillel. He got her half of the bed so Gad could hold him, Sima slept on Geula’s floor because the damn house was too small for a guest room, and Galil – going by the light under the door when Sima got up to go to the bathroom at midnight – stayed up all night reading or something. What a shitty evening. Shittier day, once they got the news about Theo. 

“Okay, okay,” Galil said. He rolled his eyes, but Sima didn’t have it in her to reprimand him. She doubted she even had it in her to get up. God, poor Theo. No wonder she had no wind left in her sails after that piece of news. “ _Ima_? Can we watch TV in your room?” 

Teenagers. Single-minded to a fault, that was what they were. Luck should have turned to her side and made it so that Galil didn’t turn out like the Adler-Derensky kids, but no, that would have made her life too easy. “Watch your sister,” Sima snapped. “She’s got toys to play with. Play army men or something.” 

“O _kay!_ ” Galil sprang off the couch and stretched; Sima caught a glimpse of bright red armpit hair, redder than the hair on his head, in the area that the sleeve of his T-shirt didn’t cover. Great, so that was where her line and Gad’s converged. She’d had to shave her armpits every day before Geula was born and she stopped giving a damn. “Is she in her room?” 

“Yes, with your _Aba_. Give him a break, tell him to come down here.” Sima glanced at Omer under her eyelashes, fast enough that (she hoped) he didn’t notice. She’d had years to get used to his hypersensitivity during flare-ups of his PTSD; no touching, no looking at him for too long. That he’d allowed Galil to sit next to him for an hour was a good sign. 

Galil ran off, and Sima dared another look at her brother-in-law. “Omer? _B’seder?_ ” 

“ _Ken_ ,” he mumbled, although he kept his eyes on his lap. “ _Slikha_ -“ 

“ _Sheket_ ,” she said, and just in case he didn’t get the point, added “Knock it off. We all know it’s not something you can control. Better you’re here than alone.” 

“I guess,” Omer said, sounding like no one so much as Galil. “Sima, when do you want to kick me out?” Now he looked up. Sima bit her lip so she wouldn’t exclaim out loud at the enormous black circles under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t slept. That probably meant Gad hadn’t slept, either. Oy gevalt. “I can leave whenever you need.” 

Sima hovered her hand over his shoulder, but didn’t touch. _Not yet_ , whispered some instinct inside her. “Whenever _you_ need. I’m sure Gadi would be okay if you need to stay all week.” It wasn’t as though he ate much when he got like this, and unlike her kids, he remembered to turn the lights off and flush the toilet. “Will you be okay by yourself?” she asked. “I need alone time.” 

“Sure,” Omer said. “I can take care of myself.” 

The possibility of arguing the point flickered faintly through her head, but this was not a hill that Sima wanted to die on. He wasn’t okay if he was _here_ , but all right, he hadn’t blown up the house when he got up before everyone else that morning. “I’ll be in the gem room,” she said. “If you need anything at all, just knock. _M’vin?_ ” 

“ _M’vin_.” 

With Omer settled, Sima let some of the day’s worries slip out of her mind as she unlocked her gem room and sat down on the stool at the end of her workbench. _Grab the loupe. Flip the light._ Sometimes, she found a true beauty in routine. Deadlines, too, like the appraisal that the auction house in Boston wanted for a supposed antique ring by next Thursday. 

She took the ring out of its locked case and held the loupe in front of her eye for an examination. “Nah,” she muttered out of habit (working with yourself could drive you a little crazy without some background noise). “No way this is real.” The woman who brought it to the auction house knew enough about the time period to bring in a set gem that wasn’t a diamond, but Sima would stake her career on this ring not being Victorian. 

_Probably fake patina_ , she wrote on the nearest notepad after some more squinting at the ring. _Real emerald, not CZ. Guessing patina faked with fire method._ Oldest trick in the book, and you could find it anywhere on the Internet: hold some gold-colored thing plated with cheap metal over a fire, cool it off, and try not to burn the skin off your fingers. The auction house was _not_ going to be happy; one of the younger appraisers swore the thing was real. Sima had to give her some credit; whoever doctored this up used good enough base metal that it didn’t flake all over her fingers. The stone, too, was real on stringent examination. 

Realer than Bill and Theo’s marriage. She winced; the thought hit her like a punch to the stomach. For God’s sake, they’d all been so happy when Theo found Bill. She’d made their wedding rings herself, and making rings was _not_ her strong suit. Now…now Theo had thrown his ring, and apparently they’d all been idiots if they hadn’t noticed Bill’s intention to betray Theo. Years of research gone. Years of trust probably broken. Who did that to another human being? 

“Stupid _goyim_ ,” she said, squinting at the ring. 

Voices rose somewhere outside her door. Upon listening, she determined the speakers (Gad and Omer) and the location (living room). All right, so maybe it was time for Omer to go home. Sima couldn’t say she was all that disappointed. Dinner had been ‘every man for himself’ after the phone call they got, but even before, Omer’s flares just sucked in all the energy around him like a black hole and made regular activity impossible. Even Geula wasn’t her normal gregarious self. 

She cocked an ear upwards, and hearing nothing, went back to her projects. The voices disappeared. With deep breaths, so did everything except the ring, followed by some settings to repair – working with a jewelry store for nearly twenty years had some perks, namely that they trusted her to work from home. The _tink_ of tools on metal evened her breathing. _In, out_ , light on metal, all the things that soothed her. 

Someone tapped on the door. “Sima? _Yafati?_ ” 

“Huh.” She put down her tools. How long had she been working? “ _Ma?_ ” 

“I took Omer home a while ago,” Gad said. “It’s almost ten. Do you want to come up to bed?” 

Sima closed her eyes and briefly weighed potential inability to sleep against an all-nighter. Of course, the possibility of any sleep at all won out. It always did. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll come. Are the kids in bed?” 

“Geula, yes. Galil, probably doing teenage stuff in his room.” 

She stuck out her tongue. “I won’t ask.” 

“Yeah, don’t,” said Gad with a shuddery laugh. “I’ll wait for you?” 

Sima got the jewel case and set the ring back inside, then turned the key. “Just a minute. Let me clean up and I’ll come back with you.” 

Gad still stood outside the door when she finished, turned the lights off, and locked up after her. She didn’t even need to ask him for touches; he put his arm around her waist, and she an arm around his, and together, they went to try for whatever rest would come.

iii.

Veterans with their gazillion-yard stares, including Omer, had nothing on Dwight. “Hey!” For the hundredth time or so, Noah waved his hand in front of Dwight’s stupefied face. His phone lay in his lap where he’d dropped it. “Dwight. Honey. Um…poopsiekins?”

Dwight let out a hard breath through his nose, which upon consideration didn’t seem like a laugh. “Fuck,” Noah said. The Leanne Cartman routine usually got a smile. “Dwight, seriously, you gotta talk to me. Theo needs you to be okay for him.” 

Now tears began leaking from the corners of both of Dwight’s eyes, just where the smile lines that Noah loved so much creased the skin, but he still didn’t say a word. “Oh, God,” Noah said into his own hands. “Okay, move over. Move, Kosher.” He squished himself in between the husband and the pig, and immediately received an angry grunt for his trouble. Chazzer didn’t protest, good girl that she was. “Good puppy.” He reached over and petted her ears. “You need to keep your dad company.” 

Kosher butted his head into Dwight’s side. It elicited a twitch, which at least was a sign of life. Said a lot about Kosher’s general cuddliness, in Noah’s opinion. If you needed cheering up, you needed a pig. “Good boy likes bacon,” Noah said. “Good little cannibal. We don’t let you have bacon, do we? No, we don’t. You could get mad pig disease if that exists. Oh, no, shambling zombie piggy.” 

A choked gurgle of a sob rose from Dwight’s throat, and as stiffly as if he’d been _Petrificus totalus_ ’d, he fell over from his sit and landed with his head on Noah’s shoulder. “Theo,” he said, and his lips barely moved. 

“Yeah, Theo.” _Keep talking_ , Noah thought. Words. Sentences. Dwight needed solid speech or else he would lapse into who knew what, like Theo, only worse because there was no way Noah could help. Past psych fuckery, Jesus, what a set of issues. “Lemme hold you, okay? Theo’ll be fine. They’re taking good care of him up at the hospital.” The words bubbled in his throat like vomit. There were too many people he’d known who ended up, or had relatives who ended up, in the psych ward and never came out. But for Dwight, he swallowed down the bitterness. “And we got Chazzer and Kosher to take care of us.” 

Dwight closed his eyes – yeah, all right, more signs of life! Sleeping equaled living. It was worse when all you could do was lie on your bunk in juvie with everyone’s screams and cries and terrible smells around you, a haunted house full of real people masquerading as poltergeists. Noah closed his own eyes and stroked Dwight’s smooth scalp as he alternately petted each animal with the other. Too many bad memories tonight. Just too much. 

His eyes opened again some time later when someone pounded hard on the front door. “Who’d we piss off?” Everyone they knew rang the bell. 

“No one,” Dwight mumbled, “I don’t think. Can you get it?” 

“No problem.” Noah kissed the top of Dwight’s head. “You’re sweaty.” 

“Whatever.” 

Noah ignored the teenage-type attitude and made sure to turn on every light in the hallway and front entryway while walking to the front door. No way was some junkie getting the jump on him tonight. The face through the peephole, though, distorted as it was, showed someone more familiar (if sometimes more annoying) than a junkie. 

Danny lifted his fist again as Noah opened the door, and Noah ducked just in time to avoid a punch to the forehead in the mistaken belief that he was made of wood. “Danny? What’s going on?” he asked. 

Danny’s eyes, when they stared into his, showed only raw terror. “I,” he said, “I , I think…I, there’s…my…my fault. I think. I think. There’s.” His mouth moved after that last word, but soundlessly, a goldfish’s mouth making bubbles at nothing. 

“Jesus Christ.” Noah put an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Come in. What did you _take?_ ” Danny never babbled. Nothing made him do that, medical emergencies, explosions, earthquakes, or death of the sun be damned. “Sit down in the kitchen. I’ll lock up.” 

He peered around the immediate radius outside the door out of habit before he locked it. Danny was sitting at the kitchen table when he got there, hands clasped together in front of him. “Happened, it happened,” he said without looking up. “I can’t, can’t… _can’t_. What.” He swallowed hard. “What did I do?” 

“Danny, you’re okay.” Noah covered both of Danny’s hands with one of his. “Calm down. I’ll bring you coffee, all right?” 

“Right,” said Danny, and nodded like a bobblehead, fast and tight. “Yes.”

“As long as you’re good with instant,” Noah said. No objection from Danny, so he’d take it as a yes. “And you know what,” he noted as he pulled down two cups – just in case Dwight wanted some – from their cabinet, “I would _never_ put drugs in it. I like to keep my loved ones sober, unlike someone we know.” 

_Thunk_. 

“What the hell?” Noah put the mugs down and turned around, only to see his older brother, his fussy-tempered but strong-as-iron older brother, grind his forehead into the table and begin to shake with sobs. “Oh. Shit.” 

He was going to knock Bill’s goddamn block off for fucking with his family like this. In Bill’s absence, he instead crouched behind Danny and hugged him tightly. Danny shook, and with the touch, his crying just worsened. “Is it me? Was it something I said?” Danny shook his drooping head ‘no.’ “Okay, is this about Theo? I swear, I’m not drugging your drink. I’ll kill anyone who does.” 

“No!” Danny cried. “You can’t.” 

“What?” Where was this kind of reaction _coming_ from? “Danny. You know I’m exaggerating, right? I’m not gonna kill anyone.” 

“It’s not…you.” Danny heaved in an enormous breath, sniffling. “I did this. Bill wouldn’t have…” He whimpered, and from how he moved his right hand, Noah guessed he was putting a fist in front of his mouth. “I helped.” 

For a split second, the image of himself as a robot, ‘Does Not Compute’ hanging over his head, flashed before Noah’s eyes. “You weren’t at Theo’s house,” he said. “You were home with Oreet, remember? He put the pills in Theo’s tea all by himself.” 

“Yes, but…” Danny lifted his face out of his hands and scooted his chair around. Noah let go to let him move more freely. “I helped him with the…destruction,” he said. His eyes still ran with tears, and his face had splotched red and pink from crying. “Bill called me after Theo went to work. He asked me to come over and help him, and he explained the whole situation, and - _ngk!”_

Suddenly Noah found his hands around Danny’s neck and his fingers digging into the soft flesh. He didn’t even remember lunging, just bright red fury that fuzzed out everything else in his vision. “Shit!” He staggered backwards and only stopped when his back hit the kitchen counter. “You fucked with Theo’s stuff. Everyone in my family’s a fuckin’ traitor!” _You shitass mistake. Worthless little fuckwad. I should’ve waited for the booze to wear off before I fucked your mother – no, wait, you get back here, little bastard, get BACK HERE!_ His vision wavered, and suddenly, he wondered if he was going to be sick. 

“Noah?” Danny moved towards him with outstretched arms. Above him, even. Noah felt his sore ass, and the thought came to him that maybe he’d fallen. “Are you all right?” 

“Get away from me!” He scrambled to his feet and scuttled into the corner in his best fighting stance. “Fuck you, Danny. You’re just like Dad.” 

“Noah, you need to listen –“ 

He clapped his hands over his ears hard, and heard them ring with pain. “Shut up, shut up, shut _up_ , Daddy!” _Under the bed hands over his mouth hot breath tears on his face go away go away go away_

“Who are you calling Daddy?” came a voice from above, his knight in shining armor. “Noah, get up. What did he do to you?” Dwight took him by both arms and pulled him to his feet, and Noah grabbed on. “Danny,” Dwight repeated, “what the fuck did you do?” 

Noah took a huge breath and felt the air wheeze into his lungs. He needed an inhaler. Shit shit shit, he hadn’t needed an inhaler for years, not since the panic attacks stopped. “He helped destroy,” he said, and choked. 

Dwight patted his back. “Slow breaths, Noah. Slow. There we go.” He pulled Noah closer and Noah hid his face in Dwight’s chest. If Dwight betrayed him, too, he’d probably kill himself, but this was a safe space right now. “Danny, I’ll ask you one more time: what did you do?” 

Noah didn’t need his eyes to see Danny wither like a primrose at Chernobyl. “Bill called me yesterday morning,” he said. “Dwight, you have to believe me. I’m Theo’s _lawyer_ and he didn’t let on any of this stuff. Have you even seen the messages from Smaug? Forget emotional manipulation, that’s emotional warfare.” 

“No,” Dwight growled, “I haven’t. And that gives you an excuse to shred all the documents…why?” 

“Delete,” Danny corrected. “They were on his computer.” Was now really the time to be a comma fucker? Noah didn’t think so. “Dwight, listen. Smaug’s obviously been trying to get him to hurt himself or maybe tank his career and we couldn’t let it happen. All right? _Couldn’t_. You would have done exactly the same thing if you’d been the one Bill called.” 

“But he didn’t call me,” said Dwight. “That means he knew what he did was wrong. He was trying to be sneaky, because he knew I would’ve told Theo. You fucked up, Reisberg.” 

Noah pressed into him. “I’m…I’m Reisberg, Dwight. Don’t.” Fucking last name, tripping him up after three years of him being a Feldman. “Just Danny.” 

“Okay, _dodi_. Danny.” Dwight gave him another pat. “Danny, you fucked up. Whatever messages you think I need to see, send ‘em my way, because if I can’t trust my brother-in-law –“ 

“ _Hey!_ ” Danny shouted. Noah would have sworn the floor shook. “Don’t make me into a villain, Feldman. Do you know what I’ve been doing all day? I’ve been on the phone with your brother to make sure this son of a bitch doesn’t leave the country and escape justice. All the borders within a thousand-mile radius have been notified. Smaug’s going to the MCC if it’s the last thing I do for my friends.” 

“Federal prison?” Noah pulled his head away from Dwight’s chest. “ _What’s_ Brian doing?” 

Danny looked at him, and Noah’s heart pounded again. His face could have been stone with how hard it was set. “Brian’s much better-connected than you think he is,” he said quietly. “He has friends in high places. Smaug won’t skip town. He won’t skip justice, either.” He started ticking off on his fingers. “Columbia’s been notified, the borders, everyone he’s connected with, Wentworth, let’s see. I think that’s about it so far. Of course, Brian will be doing more overnight.” 

“Brian can do that?” 

Dwight snorted. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “Not like he tells me anything, but I swear, once I got my hands on his phone while he was in the bathroom and I swear, I saw Putin in his contacts before it auto-locked.” 

“Oh my God. Fuckity fuck.” Noah detached himself fully and stared Dwight in the face. “Please tell me you’re not lying. Who else does he have in his phone?” 

“Fuck if I know.” 

“ _Ahem_ ,” Danny said. No, he couldn’t just clear his throat like a normal person; he had to make a cartoon sound, too, because apparently he couldn’t stop digging himself into a hole. “You two had better not accuse me of not caring. I care about Theo just as much as you do and I won’t see him destroy himself or lose his job over this poopface.” 

“You can deep-throat Brian Feldman’s wrinkly cock and say ‘son of a bitch,’ but not ‘shithead’?” Noah asked. “You’re weird.” 

Dwight took Noah by the shirt collar and brought him to the table way more forcefully than was necessary. Damn pig. “Noah, have you calmed down enough to hear what your _shithead_ brother –“ he pronounced the syllables carefully and, Noah thought, with relish – “has to say for himself?” His hand tightened on Noah’s collar. “And let’s stop talking about my brother’s wrinkly cock.” 

“Coffee,” said Noah. “Please.” 

“Okay.” Dwight went to the counter. “Danny, you sit down, too.” Once Danny had complied, he took down the instant coffee and said “Now tell me why the fuck I shouldn’t throw you out of here, Danny. Or poison your coffee. I’m serious – talk.” 

Danny put his head back down on the table. Noah fervently hoped that he would have a bruise and a headache there later. “I wanted to wait until after Theo got better to tell you this,” he said, “but I think Bill will forgive me for putting threats to my life first. The research isn’t destroyed, all right?” 

“It’s not… _what?_ ” Either he was hearing things or he’d gone horrifically nuts like Theo; any minute now, he’d wake up in the psych ward, sixteen again, drugged to his fucking eyebrows and beat up so much he had hardly any unmarred skin left. 

“I said it’s not destroyed,” Danny said. “We put the most critical stuff on a flash drive. No, I’m not telling you where it is – God only knows if Theo will regress or something if he gets it. Do you think we’re really that cold?” 

“You acted that cold,” Noah replied. “What am I supposed to say, Danny? Yay for you, you didn’t destroy someone’s research, but sent them to the psych ward anyway?” He put his elbows on the table, and for once, Danny didn’t say a word about it. “You better give that back to Theo when he’s better. I mean _as soon as_ he’s better. Otherwise you’ll never see me again.” 

Danny’s mouth quivered. “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “Please, Noah. Please believe me. I was only trying to help my friend.” 

“Not your client?” Noah couldn’t resist asking. 

“Now _that_ ,” Danny said, pointing a finger at him, “is low. Also not true.” 

Well, whatever else Danny was, either Noah had been wrong for thirty years or he wasn’t a liar. “Maybe you don’t need killing,” he said, a Southern expression he’d picked up from some of his fellow hell-dwellers at juvie, but mentally revised his hit list from two to one.

iv.

_chain chain strain against the chains that rhymes that writes, no I write_

he has to fly the chains they just burn 

ice and forge burning, swim up to words words words 

_Mr. Derensky? We’re turning you over now._

doctor, they need to call him doctor but it comes out _doc’r_ because his mouth is cotton and his brain is not there it’s in the graveyard 

swim back down to nothing in his head down in the water and dirt he can’t hear them can’t understand sharp prick needle in his vein takes away the thinking, no no, they can’t do that, he needs it 

_I need more Thorazine. Mr. Derensky! Stop moving!_

thorazine Thorin, _thor’n’zn thor’n’zn_ he says he laughs but it’s a choke and they don’t understand and he shouldn’t say it, they might find out, so what if they do, no one believes him if there’s other people here they wanted to go in the ground like him so they can’t scream 

more time how long 

how 

swim up break the surface he can see again and think

“T.D. Darrens. I’m. I’m T.D. Darrens.” Rusty creak, coffin-lid voice. 

“Not another one.” Disgust for his rust. Crazy him. Only he’s not; this is the truth. “They all think they’re T.D. Darrens. I’m getting the doctor.” 

He lies down. Only voices, no sight. Choppy things. If he opens his eyes, he’ll throw up. 

Another voice comes and it’s snake oil. “My name is Dr. Saar. Tell me, Mr. Derensky. Why do you think you’re T.D. Darrens?” 

Squeeze shut. Not his eyes. His body. “I am. Check my…ID.” Slow. He can’t think. Thought he could. “I…teach.” 

There’s more words that blur together and he hears _schizophrenia_ and that’s when he screams to tell them he’s researched that damn disease and he doesn’t have it and his pathways are fine but it doesn’t work and then there’s the word Clozaril

“Dr. Saar? Okay, you’re here. Yeah, here’s your order.” 

_clo_

_za_

_ril_

he knows he knows what it does words fall 

away 

can’t 

think

float 

f l o a t 

until far away so far he can’t hear he feels it say 

_Are you absolutely mad? This man is not schizophrenic._

_Out of line, Grey._

_No, I’ll tell you who’s out of line. I’ll pull privileges on you this instant, see if I don’t. He’s my patient now. Who prescribed him clozapine?_

_Manu Saar._

hand finger it touches somewhere

another needle more time he feels it now 

wrist 

there is a hand on his wrist

_Theodor, it’s good to see you awake._

he can’t think can’t talk but when he can the tall gray shadow is there 

“Grey. You’re.” 

“Here? Don’t try to speak. You’ve been through an ordeal. Go to sleep, Theodor – I’ll take care of this. Rest.” 

rest 

_rest_

v.

You could only watch the Home Shopping Network for so long before it stopped comforting you and started boring you. Omer’s head jangled with every whir of the new-and-improved Magic Bullet, or whatever piece of garbage they had up on the screen to appeal to the gullible kids. Meanwhile, the gullible kids upstairs (God, he loved ‘em) had started playing army men or dancing in cement overshoes or something. His head _hurt_.

“Gad?” he ventured. “Are you in the kitchen?” 

Gad came into the living room with a beard full of crumbs and half a slice of yesterday’s damn birthday cake on a plate in one hand. Of all the inappropriate – “You all right, Omer?” 

“ _Nu_ ,” said Omer, gesturing at the cake, “put that away, maybe. Later, later,” he added when Gad turned around to go back to the kitchen. “I can deal for now. I wanted to tell you it’s time for me to go home.” 

“No, stay,” Gad said. “You can stay here as long as you need. We’re happy to have you.” 

“Eh, you have the kids to deal with. They like me all right, just not all the nightmares.” He didn’t want to force Sima out of her bed for another night, either. She didn’t complain about it, but he knew she’d had back pain since Geula, not least from carrying the little hellion around. Geula wouldn’t be four for another five months and already, she seemed to have decided that becoming even more assertive than her brother was the way to go. 

Gad ate another forkful of cake and nodded. “ _B’seder_ ,” he said. “You want me to drive you?” 

“ _B’vakasha_.” 

“Okay, I’ll go get the car ready.” Gad ate the last few bites of cake and licked his fork. “Let me go put this plate in the kitchen and then I’ll wait for you outside, if you don’t get there first.” 

With that settled, Omer went to say goodbye to Sima, but found her workroom door closed. “Gad?” 

There came a clatter of ceramic from the kitchen and Gad appeared. “Yeah?” 

“Will you tell everyone thanks for me? You went to a lot of trouble, having me here. I appreciate it.” Gad shouldn’t have had to deal with Omer’s condition – and Grindal always took care to say that it was a _condition_ , not a failing, and definitely not a sign of weakness – but he never made any more than token complaints. “I can call from home later.” 

“Sure. Whatever you want.” Gad put his arm around Omer’s shoulders and pulled him away from the door. “Come on, let’s get you home.” 

Omer kept his eyes closed on the drive home. Gad didn’t insist that he talk; sometimes his brother did enjoy chattering at him, but not tonight. In that silence, Omer could feel the unspoken love and support that led Gad and Sima to keep him in their home whenever he needed it and involve him in their children’s lives. What he wouldn’t give to have his own, but whenever he thought of starting a relationship, he suddenly couldn’t think of anything but the families he’d seen separated in Vietnam, either by capture or by the damn land mines. 

The sad part was that Gad had barely ever known him different. The fourteen years between them meant that when Omer finally made it home, Gad was six years old. Omer doubted he remembered the eighteen-year-old brother he used to have, the one who thought he could someday build things instead of gunning them to pieces. 

Gad pulled into one of the spaces in front of Omer’s apartment building, turned the car off, and laid a hand on Omer’s knee. “Anytime you want,” he said quietly. “Even if you’re not, you know. We’re glad to have you.” He moved his hand to Omer’s shoulder and locked eyes with him. “Move in, if you want.” 

“No, Gadi,” Omer said at once. “Thank you. You do enough.” 

“Okay.” Gad nodded and got out of the car, then held the door open for Omer. “Hey,” he said. “Omer.” Omer looked at him, and Gad caught him in a hug. “Anytime,” he repeated. “You’re my brother and I love you.” 

Omer clung to him for a few moments before he forced himself to let go. If he didn’t, he knew he’d be here all night, and there were people who needed Gad at home. “I love you, Gad,” he said as he let go. “Thank you. And stay safe.” 

He waited until Gad’s car had pulled away before he took out his keys and let himself into the front foyer. As far as he knew, everyone who’d seen his home – himself included – considered this apartment building a complete craphole. On disability, though, it was what he could afford: a hallway that smelled funny, an apartment with crooked letters and a scuffed door that he double-locked out of paranoia he didn’t want to think was justified, and Internet that crawled. Massachusetts real estate was nothing more than a front to bilk people out of their money, in his opinion. 

The usual check inside the apartment showed no signs of a mugging, as always. Just like the platoon commander said, though, it didn’t hurt to check, and checking hadn’t steered him wrong so far. Omer flipped the switch that lit up his tiny kitchen in buzzing fluorescent brightness and found some utensils in his silverware drawer. “Running low,” he said. It would be time to do the dishes soon, which meant he needed to buy dish detergent. That could probably wait until tomorrow. 

He still had a TV dinner in his freezer, one of those healthy ones he’d picked up when they were on sale a few weeks ago. Red curry, something like that. Omer pulled out the freezer-burned box, shrugged, and said “Good enough.” He lived alone by choice – roommates, as he’d found out in the hardest way, weren’t for him – but sometimes it was nice to remind himself he hadn’t completely lost the power of speech, even living like he did. 

Gad worried, though. Oy gevalt, did he worry. Omer had long ago lost count of the number of times Gad asked, even begged, that he come live with him, Sima, and the kids. “No,” Omer always told him gently. “I need some privacy,” or some variation. Three bedrooms didn’t leave any room for him anyway, unless he forced Galil out of his room to share with a sibling ten years younger, and that would just be inappropriate as well as selfish. 

Sima and Gad gave him money beyond what his disability and part-time job at the library paid, though. Without him living apart, they wouldn’t have to shell out. Every time Gad asked, an urge seized Omer to say ‘yes, please let me live with you.’ But he was sixty-four, and if he couldn’t live alone now, well, that just brought him a little bit closer to death. 

“Death,” he said aloud as his eyes squeezed shut at the memory of an explosion. It was a mine, and he was just a kid, and the _boom_ could have been his left arm and leg coming off instead of his buddy’s. 

_Bradley, hang in there, the medic’ll be here soon, okay, oh God, oh, God, all this blood, look at you –_

_‘S’okay, Omes, I know I’m dyin’._

Darkness suddenly surrounded him, and Omer gasped. Memory-explosions couldn’t blind you, he reminded himself. It was just…oh. His eyes opened and he blinked gratefully at the light. When had he closed them? 

He left the couch and shuffled to his bedroom to pull the special socks out of his dresser. They were blue, fuzzy, and well-worn from the washing machine and a thousand flares; when he felt okay, it seemed kind of pointless to cushion himself with his favorites. “ _Yitkadal v’yitkadash sh’mei rabah_ ,” he said under his breath as he pulled them on, beginning the Mourner’s Kaddish, “ _b’alma divra khirutei v’yamlikh malkhutei, v’hayekhon u’v’yomekhon…_ ” His lips moved without his having to think about it, in the familiar cadences of the ancient words he’d learned in his brief time at the Jewish seminary. Thought he could be a rabbi after he came back. He’d thought wrong. _Breathe. Breathe_. 

Omer sucked in his breath. “I’m okay,” he said. His voice shook, so he grabbed his forearms with the opposite hands and pressed them against his stomach, a Heimlich for his PTSD-ridden brain. “I’m okay. I’m here. Nothing’s coming after me.” Grindal had him repeat that sometimes in individual therapy. In another life, Omer could have had his job as a psychologist, or maybe a neurologist - _Sherlock Omes_ , the guys in his platoon had called him, because he thought maybe he’d go to medical school after he came back. 

Oh, he came back, but his aspirations died between base camp and the battlefields. Sherlock Omes Rabin died there, leaving Omer the old sourface, someone he knew the kids considered a laughingstock. Even Gad poked at him sometimes. _Breathe_. 

Bending down, he touched first his calves, then his ankles and sock-covered feet. “I’m okay.” He was here in this terrible apartment, with dinner waiting and a collection of DVDs waiting for him. “Eat,” he said, lightly slapping his right hip. “Go eat, Omer. Now.” Sometimes that helped, and now, he felt the tightness in his chest and neck ease. 

The TV dinner was just where he’d left it. That was something consistent, at least. “I have a dinner waiting for me,” Omer said as he stuck it in the microwave. _List positive things_ , Grindal said when he or other people in the group sessions felt down, _either from right now or from your past experiences. Finding the good can soften the bad_. “I bought it myself.” He hated eating food at Gad’s house, anyway. Gad spent enough money on him; Omer wouldn’t take dinner out of his children’s mouths. Probably why he was panicking now – he didn’t have any food in him. 

“What’s the next step?” he asked the empty room, and answered himself with more confidence than he’d felt a minute ago. “Watch a movie.” He had an old combo VHS/DVD player he’d bought off eBay a few years ago, dirt cheap. His ancient TV might not get an antenna signal anymore (and no way was he putting up a satellite dish when it would probably get stolen within twenty minutes), but he definitely had plenty of nice, distracting movies to watch. 

He _still_ flipping flinched when the microwave went off. “Good things,” he reminded himself, one splay-fingered hand over his heart like that would keep it from beating like a bird’s. “Bradley. We had good times.” Bradley brought a pack of cards all the way to the army base, and he and Omer played when they didn’t have anywhere to be. The vast majority of the time, Omer won. “I have food. I have movies. I’m safe.” 

The next accusatory microwave beep didn’t come as such a shock, and after a minute, Omer found that he could get up and take his food out without flinching. With the nuked dinner poured into a plastic bowl, he came back and knelt in front of his cabinet of DVDs. Aladdin? Not tonight. Not The Sandlot, either. Too many bright lights, and that fairground scene was terrible, just terrible. “Shrek,” he decided. That anachronistic quest story would do a good job of distracting him from Theo – “Stop,” he said, more loudly than he’d intended. “No.” Theo was an off-limits subject tonight. No more touchy subjects, no more intrusive thoughts, or he’d go even more crazy than he was. 

The panic slowly drained away, and Omer unfroze, letting his breath out in relief. He wouldn’t give any more thought to his ghosts, either living or dead. Nodding, he put in the DVD, went back to the couch with his bowl, and settled in to watch.

vi.

Monique’s phone went off when the boys were halfway into their rerun of _Spongebob_ and she was about a quarter of the way through her container of instant noodle soup. Out of habit, she ran like a cheetah was after her to pick it up off the coffee table and answer. “Monique Willis.”

“Yes, hi, Monique,” came Bill’s voice through the receiver, unmistakably shaky. If she had to guess, she would say he had been crying for at least an hour, possibly longer. “Is…is this a good time to talk?” 

“Bill, what’s wrong?” she asked, moving her phone to the space between her shoulder and her ear. Talking and eating was rude, but today had been a workday and she suspected that if she went any longer without food, she’d pass out. “Is Freddy sick?” 

“Mom, who’s that?” Reynard shouted from her room. “Is that Bill?” 

Monique slurped another spoonful of noodles and adjusted the phone. “Hold on a second, Bill. Yeah, hon, it’s Bill. Be quiet, okay?” 

“We’re trying,” said Bryden, “but the good TV has good sound.” 

‘The good TV’ was in fact their only TV at the moment, and it lived in Monique’s bedroom. Back when the boys were little, they’d had an old black-and-white one in the living room, and the name stuck. That particular TV had actually come from Bill, back when Bryden and Reynard were babies and he lived with their family for lack of knowledge about Americans (and how to make them his roommates). “Well, turn it down,” she said. “Close the door, too. Bill? Talk.” 

Bill’s frantic gulping drowned out even the sound of one of the twins decisively slamming the bedroom door. She could scold them for that later, she decided. “It’s Theo,” he said. “Monique, he’s in the psych ward and it’s my fault and I called, I called Noah and Dwight to talk and Noah hung up on me –“ 

“Wait, _what?_ ” Monique put down her spoon. “Theo’s in the pysch ward? What the hell happened?” 

“It’s everything I’ve been telling you about,” said Bill, “you know, how he’s been acting.” 

As far as she knew, and she knew a lot about hospitals, surliness didn’t put you in the psych ward unless it masked antisocial personality disorder. If that were the case, first, the symptoms would’ve been visible from a mile away a long time ago, and second, she never would have let him near Bill. “Okay, so what does that have to do with anything? Can I put you on speaker?” She really did need to eat, and the phone would undoubtedly slip into her soup bowl before long. 

“Yes. Sure,” Bill said, and Monique put the phone on the coffee table, then hit the ‘speaker’ button. “Okay. I went into Theo’s study the night before last –“ 

“He let you in there?” Monique interrupted. 

Bill sighed so loudly that his breath sent feedback into the phone. Monique winced. “I put Valium in his tea.” 

“Wait, you did _what?_ ” she said. “Bill! What the hell?” Of all the unethical crap! Sure, some of what they had to do in the hospital to sedate patients skirted the line, but she wouldn’t have expected Bill to drug anyone willingly, especially not his husband, in a million years. He cried in the nurses’ station when they had to hold kids down, for God’s sake. 

“You said yourself he wouldn’t have let me!” Bill protested. “I checked on him twice. He was…he was okay, God, I know I shouldn’t have done it and he ran out on me and now he’s in the psych ward, Monique, I just had to know.” He heaved a sob. “It was Smaug. That bastard. He was trying to m-make Theo do something awful to himself. I…I called Daniel Reisberg and we got rid of all the research and I t-told, I told him at his party so he’d snap out of it, and…” There came a broken sound from the phone. 

Monique glanced towards her bedroom door. Damn. Now was not the time to have to think about kids versus HIPAA, even if Theo wasn’t their patient. “Hold on a second, Bill,” she said. “Bryden! Reynard! It’s time to take Cornwallis for a walk.” 

Cornwallis the Plump Pug, as Bill had once termed him, looked up from washing his fat little tummy on the couch and tilted his head. He had indeed been fidgety for the last several minutes, a sure sign that he had to go. “My turn to clean up his poop!” Bryden hollered. 

“No, my turn!” 

“Both of you bring a bag,” Monique said, silently blessing whatever weirdness made her sons want to scoop poop. “And be _careful_ , you hear me? It’s dangerous out there.” 

The boys emerged from her room and immediately went to pull on their sneakers next to the front door. “Mom, you say that too much,” said Ray. “We’re eleven. We’re old enough to be safe.” 

“Don’t make me have that conversation with you again,” she said, and honest-to-God shook her finger at the two of them. Her mother would be very proud, and that thought horrified her, but not as much as the events that made her want to hug her sons every time they left the house. If she hadn’t had a frantic Bill on the line, she would much rather have walked Cornwallis herself. “You remember what’s been happening on the news? You two have to be _safe_. Just keep him in the playground.” 

“Mom?” Ray came over to her and touched her cheek. His enormous eyes bored into hers, just like when he was a baby. He still _was_ a baby, goddammit. “You want us to just have Cornwallis go on the paper again?” 

She let out her breath. “Yeah, have Cornwallis go on the paper again. Take two newspapers out of the recycling and take him out onto the porch to go.” Thank God they lived on the second floor. “Then take it down to the dumpster. Watch each other, okay? If you’re not back in five minutes, I’m coming out after you.” 

“Can we go to the playground?” Bryden asked. 

Their playground was a terrible excuse for one, being just a swingset and a seesaw with some grass that served as a dog park; Cornwallis liked to romp there. This was as good an area as she could afford, which with her increases in salary over the years meant that she could afford a two-bedroom place in a fairly good area. Not that any of that stopped her from being scared for her boys, especially at night. Dwight Feldman was not representative of cops these days, that was for sure. “Five minutes after that,” she finally said. “Ten. You hear me? Ten minutes and I’m coming out there for you. I don’t care who hears me yelling at you.” 

“Okay, Mom,” said Ray. “We’ll be careful. We’ll be _really_ careful.” 

“Thank you, sweetie,” she said. “I’ll leave the door unlocked.” 

The boys nodded, leashed up the dog, grabbed the newspapers, and went out. “Okay, Bill,” she said. “Smaug. Theo’s ex-lover, right? The one you punched?” 

“Yes,” said Bill, who sounded much calmer for having had some time to calm down. Monique slurped some noodles and settled in to listen. “I know it was a terrible thing. Half of Hillel probably won’t talk to me. I think Noah wants to _kill_ me. Do – do you know what happened, Monique? Theo th-threw his wedding ring at the floor and he went to his parents’ graves and tried to bury himself.” He hiccupped. “God. I’m calm and not calm. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this.” 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Monique said. “You’re my best friend, Bill.” She ate a spoonful of broth. “Just…don’t make me stay up all night. I can’t do all the emotional labor for you. I’m a nurse, not your personal nurse.” 

“Of course,” Bill said. “I’m sorry if made you think…of course you don’t have to do that. I’ll try to keep an eye on the time. And my words. Whatever you like.” 

Monique nodded, even though (of course) he couldn’t see it. “What possessed you to drug your husband?” she asked. “Bad idea, Bill. And it’s not like you. Was he that bad?” She felt her eyes widen as a thought came into her head. “He wasn’t hitting you, was he? Abusing you or anything? I’ll kick his ass if he was.” 

“Nothing like that. He was just what I told you. Distant, snappish, just manic.” Bill paused. “I think…I don’t know. I’ve spent a long time crying tonight, and trying to make sure Freddy doesn’t cry. He’s mad at me, you know.” 

“He should be.” 

“Yes, he should. I did a terrible thing.” He breathed deeply a few times, in and out, just like after a complicated triage. “I expect Danny’s going to come clean. I’ll make sure Theo knows I was the one who asked him over to help. Probably I was a bit desperate-sounding as well.” 

Monique took a few moments to finish her soup. After she’d finished drinking the broth out of the bowl, she said, “What’s going to happen to Smaug?” 

“I don’t know,” said Bill. “Danny and I contacted everyone we could think of. He said he’d enlist Brian to help. Brian’s got plenty of friends in high places, so I suppose I could be cautiously optimistic if I wanted.” 

“Mm-hm. Brian can work miracles?” 

“I’m assuming. Danny says a great many good things about him, and…” Bill actually giggled, albeit nervously. Maybe maniacally. Maybe it was contagious. “Danny would know. He’s the one sharing Brian’s bed.” 

She’d met Danny at Bill and Theo’s wedding, and quite honestly, Monique wasn’t sure she wanted to imagine that fusspot sharing _anyone’s_ bed. “I’m getting some hot chocolate,” she said. “Will you be okay for a minute?” 

“Sure. Use the Trader Joe’s stuff. You like it better.” 

“Well,” Monique said, and smiled at the phone, “you know me. Just a second.” 

Milk microwaved and hot chocolate prepared, she came back a few minutes later with her steaming cup. “This stuff is great,” she said. “Also, stop trying to make me drink tea. People who brag about their tea habits are so damn pretentious.” 

“I’m not arguing with you about that,” said Bill, “but I wouldn’t insult tea. Do you hate the Brits?” 

“Not the Brits specifically,” she said, taking a sip. “I named my dog Cornwallis, remember.” 

“Because you saw it on the bloody History Channel!” Bill said, laughing. “You fell asleep in front of it!” 

The hot chocolate warmed her throat and stomach as it went down, a comforting feeling. “At least I did it,” she said. “Bill?” 

“Mm?” 

“What I said to you was just a warning, not a criticism,” Monique said. “You’re not, I don’t know…an emotional labor vampire. Not like my ex.” 

“Ah, yes, Frank the Fucker,” said Bill, and unless she missed her guess, mock-spat. Possibly actually spat. “When was it he left you?” 

“Right after my C-section,” Monique replied, even though she knew well that he already knew (and he knew she knew). “I’m lying right there with my abdomen barely stitched up and he says ‘oh, Moni, I didn’t want kids. I thought I should tell you now.’” She rolled her eyes. At least after eleven years, the thought just produced an eye-roll instead of a desire to kill. “He thought I’d spend the rest of my life being a mom _and_ comforting him because he was a flake who couldn’t tell me the truth.” 

Bill snorted. “So you kicked him to the curb.” 

“Yeah, I kicked him to the curb,” she said, a repeat of their oldest shared disgust. “Didn’t ask him for child support, either.” 

“Really?” said Bill. “All right, I’m fairly sure I didn’t know that.” 

“Yes, really. Of course he wouldn’t have paid, let’s be realistic. Like I said, he’s a flake.” Monique took another long drink. “I didn’t want to have to deal with years of court battles. You think I have time for that crap? I don’t.” 

“Frank is an arse.” 

She nodded. “He is. Was. Whatever. I don’t give a damn where he is right now.” The front door flew open and the boys ran in, Cornwallis at their heels. Monique breathed a sigh of relief. “Hold on, Bill. Did Cornwallis do anything, you two?” 

“Both,” said Bryden. “We cleaned it up and then we played, but now we gotta wash our hands.” 

Monique looked up at the ceiling and silently hoped that neither of them was about to give the poor, unsuspecting kid who played on the playground next a case of canine roundworm or anything. “Go,” she said. “Then I want to go to bed, okay? You guys’ll have to give up the TV until another night.” 

“You still talking to Bill?” Ray said. 

“Mm-hm.” 

“Hi, Bill!” both boys yelled, and then ran into their bathroom. Monique winced, but Bryden didn’t crash into the nearest wall. It had happened before. 

With a smile and a sigh, she lay down on her belly. “Okay, Bill, I think this conversation’s run its course,” she said. “Look, take care of yourself tonight, okay? Don’t go to pieces as soon as I hang up.” 

“I won’t.” 

“I mean it,” she continued. “You _have_ to take care of yourself, because I can’t do it for you.” 

“I understand,” Bill said. “Go get some sleep. I’ll be all right for tonight, I promise. Freddy, too. We had ice cream for dinner.” 

Monique grinned, shaking her head. “Of course,” she said. “He deserves it tonight, I guess. ‘Night, Bill.” 

“Good night, Monique.” 

Cornwallis padded over to her after she hung up and hopped up to sit on the couch next to her, then gave a perfunctory bark. “Hey,” she said, picking up her hot chocolate. It was still warm enough not to be gross. “You’re a good boy, going to the bathroom on the paper. Thanks for making sure your brothers are safe.” As much as a sweet little pug could, anyway. She wasn’t about to hold out too much hope. 

It didn’t take long to finish her hot chocolate, brush her teeth, put up her hair, and get into her nightgown. After that, it was time to make sure Bryden and Reynard didn’t think they had a free pass to bang around and make noise all night. Stupid, yes, but she’d once forgotten to tell them ‘good night’ and they had taken advantage of that loophole. Boy, had they ever. “Kids?” She rapped on their bedroom door. “Just saying good night. I love both of you.” 

“Love you, Mom,” they said, not quite simultaneously. 

Monique quietly pressed her lips to the door before she went back to her room. This was probably a good night to try to get some headway on one of the newer T.D. Darrens books, maybe have some fun time with herself before she went to sleep. If it kept her from worrying about things she couldn’t control, well, she’d take it.

vii.

“Boaz,” said Dinah, “go to bed.”

Boaz kissed her shoulder. It might not have been the best idea to try to shoo him away when he was spooning her on the couch, but anyone watching would probably have forgiven her. She was, Dinah thought, absolutely not in her right mind. “I’m stayin’ up as long as you are,” Boaz said. “I won’t let you go this alone.” 

“You closed the store today,” she returned. “You can’t close it again tomorrow. Galion’ll get on you about your dark circles if you don’t get enough sleep. Do I have to start kicking you?” He had to know it was an empty threat. Still, Dinah had enough of her brother in her to make said empty threat. 

Boaz chuckled, as expected. “Galion’s a drunk,” he said. 

“So? Since when do you judge?” 

“Oh, I don’t. Just, he’s got no room to start throwin’ stones about dark circles. I’ve seen him run outside to puke in an empty wine box before.” Boaz gagged, then rested his face in Dinah’s neck. “I think that was from the stomach flu, though. He still doesn’t have any keys to the shop and he never will.” 

Dinah slowly shifted so that her weight was off her hip, which had begun to feel sore a while ago. “So is he actually an alcoholic?” she asked. This topic was far preferable to the raw pain that would come with talking about Theo. “Shouldn’t you try to get him help?” 

“To be honest, I’m not terribly sure,” Boaz answered. “He’s functional, I s’pose. I think he’s mostly just a stupid kid who likes to lose control of himself every once in a while. Is it weird that he’s got the best chance of sobriety in a feckin’ liquor store?” 

“With you as his boss, yeah,” she said. “He’s a student, right?” 

“UMass. Grad student for ages.” 

Dinah tilted her head back so that Boaz could kiss her forehead, which he did without being asked. “I guess it’s a relief you won’t have to put him through rehab,” she said. “Look, I don’t know how long I can drag this out. Will you please go to bed already? It’s…” She leaned forward and took her phone off the floor. “It’s eleven.” 

“Are ye sure?” 

“ _Yes_ , Boaz,” she said, her voice sharp with sudden irritation that prickled her from the inside out. “Look at it this way,” she said, attempting a calmer tone. “If you stay down here, you’ll just end up getting yelled at. If I find out anything, I’ll tell you in the morning.” 

“All right,” Boaz said with a heavy sigh, “I guess you’re right.” He patted her back, and she sat up to let him off the couch. “Lads,” he called, loudly enough for Phil and Caleb to hear, but – she hoped – not loudly enough to wake Greggy upstairs, “come say good night to your mam. ‘S’been a hard day.” 

Heavy footsteps preceded Phil and Caleb before they came into the room, followed by tight hugs from both of them. “Uncle Theo’ll be okay, right, Mom?” Caleb asked as he hugged her. He’d grown recently, but he still didn’t top her five feet and eight inches; right now, he was her baby all over again. “Won’t he?” 

“Yeah, sweetheart, he’ll be okay,” said Dinah. She cleared her throat. “Don’t either of you stay up too late.” 

“But it’s Sunday,” Phil said. Now _he_ had recently grown taller than she had, which was so fucking weird. How was she old enough to have an almost-sixteen-year-old? “We don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.” 

Dinah shook her head and let go of Caleb. “I don’t want you groggy tomorrow.” 

Caleb touched Phil’s arm. “We won’t stay up too late,” he said, the note of warning in his voice just like his uncle Theo’s. 

For the first time, hearing the contrast in their attitudes, Dinah suddenly saw some of Forrest in her oldest boy. She squeezed her eyes closed so she wouldn’t start crying. “You’re good boys,” she said. “Sleep well. I’ll try not to stay up too late, either.” A lie, but one they needed to hear. She couldn’t tell them to do what she said, not what she did; they were far too old for that now.

Boaz kissed her one more time while Phil and Caleb tromped upstairs, then followed them in silence. Dinah sat back down on the couch when they had all gone. No need to worry about Greggy, she knew; Boaz would take care of him without having to ask, whether he needed a bottle in place of her breast or a diaper change in the middle of the night. She cupped her breasts, which Greggy had suckled from a short enough time ago that they weren’t sore yet. Maybe breastfeeding would do her some good when the baby needed it. 

She checked to make sure her phone was still in easy reach and lay down on the couch. How many of her and Theo’s friends were doing this exact thing tonight? While she knew Theo had ruffled some feathers in his time knowing the people at Hillel, no one loved her brother more than their surrogate family. 

Years ago, it had been just the three of them, before Forrest and Papa died, before Papa got Alzheimer’s, but definitely not before his nightmares. He’d had those until the day he died. 

_”It’s okay, Dee, it’s me. I’m here.”_

_“Theo?”_

_“Yeah. Papa’s just having a nightmare. Here, budge over, I’m sleeping in here tonight.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“Hey, no, don’t cover your ears. Listen to me instead. You want a story? I can tell you one.”_

Looking back, Dinah wondered if maybe those weren’t the moments that shaped Theo into the writer he was today. He’d helped her escape the crappy parts of her life, and helped a million other people escape the complete crap fests that made up their lives (she’d seen some of the fan letters he got through his agent), and in return, he got…this. And there was no way to escape from it. 

She sat up and reached out for her phone, but then drew her hand back. No, she couldn’t call any of their friends. This was too personal, too raw. All they’d be able to give her would be platitudes, with the possible exception of Omer. 

No. It was her turn to help Theo, and that meant staying up until the metaphorical rooster crowed for news of him, if necessary. And when this was over, if it ever was, Bill Baggins was getting screamed at until his eardrums burst. 

That was what a sister did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'primrose at Chernobyl' reference can be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/45yqb5/after_20_years_my_wife_finally_allowed_me_to_tell/). Warning: there's some body horror, but it's HILARIOUS. 
> 
> Hebrew Glossary   
> _B'seder?_ [Are you] okay?   
> _Ken...slikha_ : yes...sorry  
>  _Sheket_ : shut up/be quiet  
>  _M'vin_ : [I] understand  
>  _Yafati_ : lovely/my lovely  
>  _Ma_ : what  
>  _B'vakasha_ : please (also means 'you're welcome') 
> 
> The Mourner's Kaddish is the traditional Jewish prayer for mourning the dead.


	28. His Right Hand Doth Embrace Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo finds himself again, under the auspices of either the best or the worst people with whom to do it.

“So. It’s today.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Theo,” Dr. Gast said gently, “tell me how that makes you feel.” 

Theo pulled his gaze up off the floor. It took a long time, much longer than he knew it would have if he weren’t still shitting leftover Thorazine and Clozaril out of his system. _Thorinzine_. He’d said that when he was high, hadn’t he? The memories were all weird, like photos where the film had been dropped into water before it got developed. Everything he remembered felt fuzzy all over, not just around the edges. “Bill’s coming to get me today,” he said obediently, because of course that was what a head-shrinker wanted him to say. Prove he wasn’t still floating in mind-ether, all that shit. “My husband’s coming to get me. I remember.” 

“I know that you remember.” Dr. Gast’s eyes were soft, just like they had been for the past two weeks. Theo couldn’t remember him raising his voice even once. “I’m not doubting your capacity to recall things, Theo. I’m asking how you feel about Bill picking you up.” 

“He’s visited before,” Theo said. “I did okay.” 

Dr. Gast dropped his eyes to his laptop and took a moment to type something before he looked up again. “I know you don’t remember that,” he said. “You’re trying to avoid the question, Theo. Is there a reason why?” 

Dammit, the guy had him there. Bill’s visit was a mess of echoing words and half-colored images in Theo’s head. He’d said _sorry_ so many times, or was that just what Theo wanted to remember him saying? All the nurses said he’d still been coming down from the high doses when Bill visited. Had to be. Why would he remember something meowing otherwise? Bill couldn’t have brought Rug. “Lots of reasons.” 

Dr. Gast leaned forward. “Oh?” 

A growl rose in Theo’s throat. “You’re gonna make me say it?” Of course. Gast just wanted to humiliate him into saying it was his fault. Everyone else wanted him to admit it was his fault, because it _was_ and maybe they all just needed to see him brought down. “Okay. I don’t want my husband to be scared of me. I know he’ll be scared of me, all right? This whole fucking…” He closed his eyes and pulled his hair in both hands, even though Dr. Gast had told him in this very room that hurting himself wasn’t productive, probably a thousand times. “He’ll divorce me. I deserve it.” 

“I’m sure Bill won’t divorce you,” Dr. Gast said, probably trying to be soothing. His tone just further irritated Theo’s head, a stupid jangling bell of upcoming platitudes and false reassurances. Usually the man really did soothe him, or make him laugh, like the time he’d come in unaware that he had bird shit from his half a million pet parakeets (of which he had two million pictures that he liked to show Theo) running down from the top of his head. “You were sick. Bill is a nurse, isn’t he? He won’t divorce you for being sick.” 

“You’d be surprised,” Theo said, and immediately gritted his teeth so hard that he felt it in his eyebrow ridges. _He already hurt you_ , said the sick monster in his head, the one they’d yanked out, examined, and diagnosed as bipolar I. That monster was wrong. Its very existence meant that he was the monster, the one who hurt people, not Bill. They could drug it into submission with Lamictal – and maybe he shouldn’t have fought lithium, but he had, knowing Bill’s warnings from his own patient experiences about _diabetes insipidus_ and _sick sinus syndrome_ and anyone on it just plain not being themselves – but they couldn’t silence it completely. He couldn’t. He was defective. 

“Theo?” Dr. Gast raised both eyebrows. “Are you okay?” 

He was so tiny, sitting there in his armchair. Tinier than Bill. He would probably take Bill’s side as soon as he met him, just like he should. He only wanted to help Theo because he didn’t know what kind of nuclear fallout Theo could cause just by existing. “I should’ve tried harder,” said Theo. “Burying myself. I should’ve finished the job.” Everyone else would be so much better off. 

Dr. Gast’s eyes widened and he vehemently shook his head. “No, no, _no!_ ” he said, and it was almost amusing how much faith the guy seemed to have in him. “Listen to me, Theo. I know you’re scared. This is fear talking. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“Because I was _sick_ , right,” Theo said. As soon as he said it, he knew he shouldn’t have poked the guy. Not everything needed his brand of mockery. He curled his hand into a fist and dug his nails as hard as he could into the softest parts of his palm. 

Reaching across the few feet between them, Dr. Gast took Theo’s hand, more firmly than a tiny man like him would appear to be able to, and uncurled his fingers. “No,” he said. “No more hurting yourself. Do you remember the mantra we came up with?” 

“Fuck the world, fuck the world, fuck the world,” Theo said. 

Now one eyebrow went up. “No, Theo, not that one. The productive one.” 

“That is the productive one.” As far as he was concerned, anyway. What was productive about lying to himself and everyone else? Putting on a brave front wouldn’t tell anyone the truth about what kind of person he was. It was time to stop lying. Become a leper wandering the earth if he had to. Azzo was probably laughing his Nazi ass off from hell as he watched Theo finally turn into a reviled Wandering Jew. 

“Humor me,” said Dr. Gast, and put his other hand under Theo’s in a hand sandwich. He’d laughed the first time Theo said that. “The productive mantra, please.” 

Theo sighed. Probably better to get it out now, like one of the cats’ farts that he could make fun of and then ignore. “I am worth help,” he began. “People in the world want to help me. I merit kindness and understanding. I am a worthy human being. I…” He had to stop for a second. This one was just an out-and-out lie, but Dr. Gast was still looking at him. “I am going to be okay and other people still love me.” 

“Yes!” Dr. Gast actually pumped his fist like a sports fan at a game, or a Trump supporter at a rally (Theo took a second to inwardly thank God that he’d gone ahead and publicly endorsed _Saba_ Sanders on the official T.D. Darrens blog before all the shit in his personal life hit the fan and he forgot about politics). “You see, Theo? You can say it. And the more you say it, the more you’ll believe it.” 

“Bill doesn’t love me anymore,” Theo blurted out. Well, there it was. Now that those words were hanging in front of him, he couldn’t take them back. “He hasn’t come to see me since that one time. Wouldn’t he – wouldn’t he have come back? If he loved me?” God, he hated the plaintiveness in his voice. No wonder Bill had only had the stomach to visit once. He’d probably had to work hard to keep from puking the whole time. “I already said he’ll divorce me, right?” Dr. Gast nodded, but silently watched with wide, reproaching eyes. Fuck him and his edicts. “He’ll probably do it right here. I deserve it.” 

Dr. Gast took Theo’s hands again. “Okay, Theo,” he said, “I think it would be a good idea to calm down. Deep breaths, and just listen.” Theo breathed in as deeply as he could and felt himself deflate. “This is your illness talking. Bipolar disorder can make you think truly horrible things about yourself. Do you believe me?” Theo nodded. Sure, bipolar could do that. It didn’t change the fact that he was shit, but all the darkness inside his head – no, definitely not all of it was true. “Now, your medicine won’t fix everything, but it will continue to help you. We have that session with you and Bill the day after tomorrow, and we can all clear the air then, too.” 

The appointment. How had he forgotten? The only reasonable explanation was the drugs. The sooner they finally cleared his body, the better, and then he’d only be dealing with Lamictal, which didn’t fuck him up nearly as badly from what he could tell. “Yeah,” he said. “Will it help?” 

“It will.” 

Dr. Gast didn’t understand. But he also didn’t lie. He wasn’t like Smaug; the way he leaned forward, elbows on knees, his whole face earnest, showed honesty in a manner that words couldn’t. “Okay,” Theo said. “But I’m scared.” 

Dr. Gast reached forward and touched him again, this time with his fingertips on Theo’s knee. “It’s okay to be scared,” he said. “Everyone gets scared. _I’d_ be much more afraid than you are in a situation like yours, goodness.” The doctor’s accent was pretty unassumingly American, but sometimes he popped out one of those prim little gems that made Theo wonder where his parents had come from. 

Where he’d learned to soothe, too. 

Theo squeezed his eyes shut. “I want my parents,” he said softly, and though he squeezed tightly, tears came out of his eyes anyway. When he started digging through the wet grass and cold dirt on top of their graves, he’d half-expected to find them alive if he could only get through the six feet they lay under to hold them one more time. He remembered that, the cold, wet night and the wild thought that they could come back as his golems. They would be the only golems to come alive for hugs instead of revenge, but he didn’t need revenge. He needed his mama. 

“I know, Theo,” Dr. Gast said. He kept his hand on Theo’s knee as Theo rocked slowly back and forth in his chair, but said nothing else. Theo had that to be grateful for, at least. 

For a long time, he rocked, and then he just sat, exhausted. The tears had only slipped out to a certain extent, not full-on crying. There’d been enough of that over the course of these two weeks, whether it was full-on crying that rose to screaming or a slow leakage over a few hours. The psych ward echoed with moans and screams anyway, and adding his to the cacophony had seemed like an inevitability at times - something he just went along with, not a matter of choice or emotion. 

Theo snorted. “Probably how they keep all the crazies in line,” he said, lifting his head. Dr. Gast blinked in obvious confusion. Of all the things to _not_ accidentally say aloud. “Crying,” Theo explained. “Everybody does it here. It just kind of comes out. If we’re all crying because everyone else is, there’s no room to think about anything else. Like that crabs in a barrel analogy.” He twined his fingers together. “Does that make sense?” 

“More than what other doctors have to say about it, yes,” said Dr. Gast. “You know, you’re very lucky to have an advocate in Grindal Grey. They didn’t have you on the Clozaril for very long, but when you first came to see me…it wasn’t good, not at all. You were a zombie, no question about it.” 

“Yeah, was that legal?” Theo asked. “He, um…stole me or something? I heard some of the lackeys talking about it. Orderlies. _Shit_.” 

Dr. Gast burst out in giggles, covering his mouth with one hand. “Ooh, yes, they’re lackeys,” he said. “It’s a gray area. He’s a psychologist, not strictly…well, I do think the word ‘patient’ still applies. You’re his patient now, and mine.” 

“Saved me from Saar, anyway,” said Theo. He’d gotten a few horror stories out of the cleaning staff. Apparently, even famous psychiatrists kept people after hours to get kickbacks for shady clinical trials. Also, they had foot odor. 

The doctor nodded, hiccupping in laughter, and checked his watch. “I think our time here is up, Theo. I’ll see you for your appointment with Bill?” 

“Yeah,” Theo said. “Thanks. I mean it. You’ve been…nice.” He cleared his throat. “That’s not the right word. I think I meant you’re the only person here who’s been nice. Everyone else just hates us.” He was definitely luckier than some of the less verbal people in the ward. Had a private room, for one. Didn’t get told to shut up more than twice a day, for another. Some of the things he heard the other inhabitants of the ward cry in the night made him ache for them. 

Dr. Gast stood up, so Theo did, too. Jesus, the guy barely came up to Theo’s shoulder. Anyone who’d gotten through med school against a lifetime of short jokes from short-dicked jerks deserved an award. “Of course,” said Dr. Gast as he took Theo’s hand, and shook it hard. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Theo. I hope I can continue to help.” 

Theo didn’t know what possessed him, maybe the bipolar monster again, but he reached forward and grabbed Dr. Gast in a hug. “Thank you,” he said. Then, when Dr. Gast squeaked, he loosened his hold. “Sorry.” 

“No need to be sorry,” said Dr. Gast after he pulled back, straightening his bow tie. “That was a pleasant hug. You’re quite welcome.” 

Theo waved at him, just like he’d done at the end of every appointment since they started seeing each other, and let the lackey at the door take him back to his room. “I’m going home,” he said. 

“Yeah?” said the lackey. “Okay. Good for you.” 

Theo chose to shut up after that. None of these goons ever wanted to talk when he was lonely, anyway; they only wanted to talk to him at night, when they turned everyone’s lights on to make sure no one was either getting off or offing themselves. Not that the first one was much of a concern for Theo. Since they brought him in and pumped him full of junk, he hadn’t had so much as a single instance of morning wood. Less for them to gawk at, anyway; no one deserved to see his full eight point six inches except the man who might never want to see them again. 

Two more lackeys frog-marched him to the main waiting area, where they stood on either side of him. One of them held a white plastic bag full of his clothes. They probably wanted to make sure he wouldn’t make a run for it, but after a stay here, who would? Forget breaking his spirit – he wasn’t sure he had any _left_. 

Then, suddenly – but it was forever, too, somehow – Bill appeared in the door, dressed in a green sweater with his hair rumpled. _God_. Theo dropped his eyes to the floor and felt his back hunch, arms falling forward. He clasped his hands in front of him. “Bill,” he mumbled. 

“Hello, Theo,” said Bill, and he sounded just as awkward as Theo felt. “I’ll – take you home, yes? They don’t make you leave in a wheelchair on this ward, do they?” 

Oh. Of course he didn’t know; he’d never had to come up. They didn’t need triage nurses for the patients after they’d already passed through the emergency room and gone to the living hell on Fourth Floor West. He remembered gusts of cold wind when the door swung back and forth in the first emergency room they’d taken him to, and a jumble of jabbering people above him as he lay on a stretcher. It felt like a stretcher in his mind. For all he knew, he’d lain on the floor. 

“I think I’d already be in it,” he said. “Are you…are you ready?” He pressed his fingers against each other hard enough that pain began to erupt where his knuckles rubbed together. “Are we going home?” 

Was it still his home now? 

“His clothes and valuables,” said the departmental secretary. Theo caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and suddenly recalled something about keeping his wallet in a lock box. Grasping shits. They better not have taken anything. 

“Yes, thank you,” said Bill, taking what she handed him, then taking the other bag from the lackey on Theo’s left. “Theo?” Theo raised his head in time to see Bill make a quick, awkward gesture towards him, like he wanted to take his hand and had decided not to. “I’m ready now.” 

His husband didn’t say the word ‘divorce’ on the elevator ride down to the first floor, the walk through the ER waiting room, or the second walk through the windy parking lot to the car. However, he didn’t say anything else. Theo started chewing the insides of his cheeks as Bill took his car keys out of his pants pocket with a shaking hand. Was Bill planning to give him the silent treatment? It was a good idea. 

In the car, though, Bill started talking. “I’ve picked up your prescription,” he said as they left the parking lot. “It’s in the medicine cabinet, next to your vitamins. Oh – you probably don’t want to think about medications right now, do you? Very stupid of me. How are you feeling?” 

“Okay,” Theo mumbled. In truth, he felt more lead-limbed here than in the psych ward, like he’d been shoved in here for hours already and had moved past cramping into numbness. “I’m okay. You?” 

“Things have been a bit hectic,” Bill said. He stared straight ahead, no hand on Theo’s thigh or coy glances in his direction like when Theo had to go away for conferences. So he really didn’t love him anymore. “Freddy’s been watching lots of reruns of Scooby-Doo. Do you know, he’s convinced that Fred and Shaggy are shacking up. Not in those words, of course. He thinks they’re ‘living together and kissing,’ that’s how he put it. He said they probably got married before the series began, because they act just like –“ His voice cracked. “Never mind that, I suppose. He’s been watching a lot of telly, that’s the general gist. Sorry to distract.” 

“’S’okay.” The fast chatter made his head hurt a little less, anyway. 

Bill got on the ramp to the highway and continued, “The cats have been coping. Rug’s entirely stopped grooming himself, I think – he smells. Got to take him to the groomer and hope he doesn’t bite him again, like last time. You’re sure you’re all right?” 

_I peed myself so many times when I was on the drugs that I lost count_. “I’m okay,” Theo repeated. “Got kind of grim. I got through it.” _They played kids’ movies sometimes in the public area. The walls were puke green._

Bill lapsed into silence for a while after that, and spoke up only when they were a few miles from home. “You’ve still got a job waiting for you, you know,” he said, his voice having lost its aggressively cheerful tone in the interim. “Dr. Ventura was…informed about who did this to you.” 

“What?” Theo blinked. “Who told her?” 

“I did,” Bill said. “I tried to give her as little detail as I could. They held a faculty meeting about it. Randall fought for you a bit, if what he told me is true.” 

“A bit?” Theo said. “ _Randy?_ ” He wasn’t sure which piece of news was more surprising: Randy wanting to keep him around, or someone fighting for him to stay at his job after he’d dive-bombed his own life, but half-assing the defense. “Wow.” 

Bill pursed his lips. “Yes, I’m as shocked as you are,” he said. “Was, I mean. Now, you’ll be teaching a greatly reduced class load next semester and the department will be keeping an eye on you. I said I’ve got your medication, yes? Right, I did. That’ll greatly help, knowing you’re on the right medication. It’s not like you have any need of the money, anyway. You’ve got more –“ 

“ – more money than God,” Theo finished, back on familiar ground with the phrase that everyone he knew (who was in the know about how he moonlighted) had been saying for years. He needed to fight the decision, but Jesus fuckin’ Lipschitz, he was so weak that he knew he wouldn’t. They shouldn’t have forgiven him. What he’d undoubtedly done to the lives of his friends, family, and coworkers was past forgiving. _Why couldn’t I have just died?_

He still couldn’t get his hopes up. Everything was about to crash down; as soon as Bill realized what he brought home, they’d be finished. 

Theo closed his eyes for the last few minutes of the trip home, opening them only when Bill stopped the car. “Everything’s waiting for you inside, just the same as when you left,” Bill said. “Er. Why wouldn’t it be? I’m just going on, aren’t I? I need to shut my mouth and let you adjust again, yes, that’s what I ought to do.” 

“You don’t need to,” said Theo. “Is…Freddy here?” Of the blurs of sensation he remembered from that night, he could still pick out Freddy’s horrified little face, the sight of which had seemed to follow him down the hall as he fled. Huge blue eyes, wobbling lip. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen tears. 

“He’s at Dinah and Boaz’s.” Bill unlocked the front door. “I thought it would be a good idea if he stayed the night there. Bit too much mayhem going on. He’d only get in the middle of it and make a fuss.” 

Theo swallowed down a sudden lump in his throat. “He doesn’t w-want to see me?” His voice stuttered mid-sentence. “That’s okay. It’s –“ _what I expected_ \- “okay. I’ll keep away from him. As…as long as he needs.” _He_ was mayhem. Everything he touched turned to fire and death. Smaug had said that, hadn’t he? Fire and death…somewhere. Theo wanted to study it, or maybe…had it been something else? Smaug’s words fragmented in his memory even as he called them up. 

Bill swung the door open, and Theo filled his lungs loudly with air that smelled like home: food, old books, and _there_ he was. “Rug?” 

Rug’s eyes locked with his, and he would have sworn that Rug’s mouth dropped open. “ _Meer! Meeeeeeeeer!_ ” Rug leaped over the space between them and rubbed furiously against Theo’s legs. “ _Meeeeeer!_ ” 

Theo’s legs gave out from under him and he found himself on the floor with Rug in his arms, the cat purring so loudly he could both hear and feel it. Rug stretched, put his paws on Theo’s shoulders, and touched their foreheads together. His whiskers tickled. “ _Mrrp?_ ” 

“He missed you so much while you were away,” Bill said from behind him. “Careful, he reeks.” 

“Don’t care,” Theo said. His vision went blurry with sudden tears. _Rug loves me_ , he thought, and he picked up Rug with both hands to bury his face in his fur. Rug chirruped, but didn’t scratch him or even move – just kept purring like a motor. 

“Theo?” Bill touched his shoulder. “Love? Are you crying?” 

“Someone loves me,” Theo choked, and he knew he meant Rug, but it could have been Bill unless he was imagining the _love_ and Rug was warm and solid in his arms and he _did_ reek, but he purred. Oh, God, he purred. That meant he loved him. “Rug…loves me.” 

Rug perked up audibly at his name and made a good-faith attempt to climb up Theo’s shoulders, which made Theo cry all the harder, not least because Rug’s claws hadn’t been clipped in a while. He held his face against Rug’s fur and listened to him purr like thunder, rumbly and comforting. Here was his rock in a storm, even if he was the cause of the storm itself, and fuck whatever the meds were doing to his brain that made him think in shitty mixed metaphors. 

“Theo.” A hand on his back. “Are you – saying you don’t love me?” 

“ _You_ don’t love _me_ ,” Theo said. The words came out in a growl that scraped him from the inside out. “You shouldn’t. What I did, I…I fucked you over. Everyone. I fucked -!” He had to stop or he’d dissolve. It hurt to talk, so instead, he sat there and shook. Cried. 

“Bloody fuck,” said Bill. Theo felt him throw his arms around him and press his head against Theo’s shoulder. What was going on? “Theo, fuck,” Bill said, his voice just as watery and stricken as Theo knew his own was, “I can’t live without you. You should be the one who doesn’t love me. Jesus, I ruined your life. I set you off, I b-basically threw you into the damn psych ward, I…why do you think…did I do something wrong? Wh-when I visited?” 

Theo turned. All of a sudden, there was Bill in his arms. He clung to him hard, but which ‘he’ was Bill and which was Theo couldn’t have been less clear. He didn’t care. _Bill loves me. He won’t leave_. 

They shook against each other for a long time, Theo rocking back and forth and clinging to Bill for all he was worth. It took a while, but he finally opened his eyes and tried to get some kind of a bead on his surroundings. His shoulder was wet where Bill’s face rested. “Are you crying?” 

“Yes, I’ve been,” Bill rasped, sniffling. “Can you blame me?” He dug his fingers into Theo’s shoulder where Rug’s paws and claws had rested, but Theo didn’t mind the pain. Relished it, even. “God, I shouldn’t be asking that. I sh-should ask –“ he sniffed – “if you could find it in your heart to forgive me.” 

“Bill…” Theo squeezed him tighter and jumped when an indignant ‘ _meeeeer!_ ’ sounded from between them. “We’re squishing the cat,” he said, and hiccupped. 

Bill let out something that could have been a laugh against Theo’s shoulder. “Does he need to get out?” 

It was difficult, given their awkward position, but Theo maneuvered his torso away from Bill’s so that Rug could leave if he wanted to. Rug meowed again, but resolutely stayed put. “He’s not moving,” Theo said, then slumped back against Bill. It was as if his lungs had been scraped out with a wire brush – the crying had drained him, and every breath heaved in and out with far too much effort. “Fat boy. He wants to stay where he is.” 

“Of course he does,” Bill said. “He’s so glad you’re finally home. I am. Theo…” He made a sound, half sob and half squeak, muffled into Theo’s shoulder. “I was so afraid you’d never come home. The – the graveyard, and then I heard you were taken into the psych ward. I thought I lost you, and I am so, so sorry. I’ll understand if you never forgive me.” 

“Bill, don’t you dare.” He wanted to take him by the arms, but _no_ , hadn’t he learned anything? That horrible monster inside him that made him grab people and demand physical contact wouldn’t be allowed to win. Theo spun back and crouched on the floor, facing away from Bill and dislodging Rug. “I need to apologize, not you. I am so fucking sorry for what I did. I hurt you, don’t tell me I didn’t. There’s nothing – I thought you were gonna leave me, and I deserve it. You should.” 

Bill grabbed him again and squeezed him tightly from behind. “No, no, no, don’t you think like that,” he whispered. “You were _ill_. You weren’t yourself. Theo, how can you blame yourself for things that you did from sickness? If you threw up on me, it would be just the same.” 

“For months?” 

“If you had cancer,” said Bill, “you wouldn’t be responsible for throwing up, even if you did it for months. This was someone else playing on your mental illness and trying to make you – bloody hell, Theo, I saw the emails he sent you. He was clearly trying to make you hurt yourself! Destroy your career, at least. What were you diagnosed with?” 

“Bipolar I,” Theo said, and broke away to look at him. “You didn’t know?” 

Bill shook his head. “Right. I never got the exact diagnosis, just your prescription. All right, so you survived _that?_ Practically delirious for months and –“ he lifted one finger and stabbed at the air in punctuation on the ‘and’ – “still, still you survived. No one blames you. No one should.” 

“I hurt Freddy.” Those round blue eyes staring at him. They would stay burned into his memory forever, he knew. He’d be thinking about them the day he died. “Didn’t you see him? He was scared. I hurt my own nephew!” 

“Yes,” said Bill, “you frightened him. That’s not nearly the same as hurting him. How many times do you think he’s had nightmares of this?” 

A knife twisted in Theo’s belly. “Every night.” He’d dreamed of Freddy in the psych ward, his nights filled with the sound of him crying. Those were the nights that, more often than not, he woke up in a wet bed. They looked at him with pity and disgust, and when the sheets had been changed, he curled up under the weight of new blankets and loathing from all sides. 

“No. Once.” Bill laid a hand on his back. “The night it happened. He also, I might add, had a nightmare about a killer cat and a lot of ice-cream cones coming to get him. He’s so worried about you. I practically had to pry him out of the house before he agreed to go stay with your sister. Not that she’s particularly fond of me right now, but he’s her nephew, too.” 

“He wants to see me?” Suddenly, the knife stilled. If Bill was telling the truth, God, maybe he could take it out completely. Maybe the monster…maybe the _dragon_ had had something to do with it. No, it had to have been inside him, dragon or no dragon. “He can’t want to.” 

“Of course he does! He’s been asking after you every day since he found out where you were. He had to fight with himself to give me your wedding ring after he picked it up. That’s how much he missed you.” Bill pressed his face against Theo’s shoulder. “We’ve missed you so much.” His voice wavered. “I didn’t know if you could come back to me. Would, even. I hurt you so badly, and I was the one who did it on purpose. Not you.” He lunged into a hug, this one even harder than the first. “I can’t believe you’re back. Can’t believe you’re all right, Theo. I love you so bloody much.” 

Theo held on as tightly as he could. “You were trying to snap me out of it,” he said. Bill’s neck smelled like home. In the psych ward, he’d only smelled medicine and people’s reactions to it, the cleaner that never covered up the smell of what miserable people made. “That’s not the same.” 

“I knew it was going to hurt you,” Bill said, but Theo didn’t catch the rest of whatever he was about to say. Abruptly, a flood of memories came in – Papa in bed. Papa crying with his nightmares and babbling out his own memories when the sickness twisted his mind at the end. He pulled away, hands shaking. 

No one knew it would hurt him at the beginning. Mama did later. She still let him scream it out and, when he refused medicine, she hadn’t forced him. There were reasons why she did it, or rather, didn’t. But what were Bill’s? 

“Why did you do it?” Theo asked. “Why did all of it have to go?” 

Bill chewed on his lip – a flash of Freddy – and squeezed his eyes shut. Theo could practically see the war going on inside him. “I didn’t,” he finally said. “I don’t know what telling you this is going to do. I was going to wait until I knew you were better, but I’m weak, God help me.” He held his head between both palms, one on each temple. “I didn’t destroy all of it. The main parts are on a flash drive.” He looked up, wide-eyed, and fear marked his face. 

“It’s not gone?” _We could save the world._ But as that thought lit him up, Smaug extinguished it. _He called me Teddy and he wanted to save the world and kill me. Did he want to save it?_ “Why?” he asked again, even softer. “Do you…want me to hurt myself again?” He should have finished the job when he tried to bury himself the first time. He knew it. If that was what Bill wanted, then he was right. 

“No!” Bill held a hand against his mouth. “That’s the last thing I want. Oh, good God, I’ve made things worse.” Now he began to shake, too, just like the patient at the ward that Theo had overheard described as having a ‘coarse tremor.’ There was definitely something coarse about it. “I’m so sorry, Theo. It’s just – it was – the things you wrote were so _beautiful_. It’s even better than the Darrens books. I can’t believe that sort of thing came out of the mind of a human being.” He bit the pad of his index finger. “I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it. It was the least I could do for you when I knew…something was going to happen when I told you what I’d done.” 

Now came that anger, the incarnation that frightened him whenever it flickered through his mind. Theo scooted away and wrapped his arms around his knees, bringing his forehead down to rest on his thighs. The darkness soothed his head a little, those dragon flames. “I went through hell and it’s not even gone?” 

“I’ve definitely made it worse,” Bill muttered, maybe _sotto voce_ and maybe for Theo’s benefit. Theo couldn’t tell – his head was spinning so fast. “Theo? This is counterintuitive, but I could destroy it, too. I just couldn’t do that to your words.” He cleared his throat, or definitely meant to, but it came out as a whimper. 

“Do what you want with it,” Theo said into his legs. Where was that urge to write that had driven him on, on, _on_ these past months? How fucking ironic that he had to go on a fucked-up line of psych meds before his head finally cleared. “Don’t know if I can anymore. I can…talk. Can barely do anything else, I don’t think.” Jesus, Octavia. She’d probably let him take some more time off. Right now, even the thought of writing made both his chest and stomach heave. “Fuck Smaug up the ass.” If only he could go back in time and shove Iggy into some Soviet gulag where they would do that exact thing with a glowing, cherry-red ramrod. History had some much better punishments than the present. 

“That’s more like it!” said Bill, and slapped some part of his body, probably his thigh. “Theo, look at me.” When Theo did, Bill put the fingers of one hand under his chin and lifted his head further. He’d missed Bill’s eyes so damn much, and now he found he couldn’t look away. “I’ve got some good news, at least. I know I don’t deserve forgiveness and you haven’t got to forgive me,” he continued quickly, “that’s not what I’m saying. This is a bit more like…” He looked up at the ceiling. “Revenge.” 

Theo hung his head. “Don’t get my hopes up,” he said. “No one’ll find in my favor. I did this to myself.” 

“You forget,” said Bill, “that we’ve got friends in high places. Or,” he corrected himself, “we’ve got a friend who’s got friends in high places, rather. Danny’s got Brian on the case. Smaug’s already been to arraignment.” 

“Arraignment?” Theo said sharply. “ _Where?_ ” There would be no chance of living a private life if the details came out, Smaug trying to screw over T.D. Darrens. He could imagine the headlines now: _T.D. Darrens’s cyberbully found guilty, Darrens found crazy! T.D. Darrens revealed as Boston-area professor! Exposé on T.D. Darrens’s extended family_ \- Dee and the boys. Gad and Sima, all three of the Budins, Bram with his poor mental health, Noah’s checkered history with the police, Dwight and Brian, even poor Oreet. Every single one of them would be flayed open for all to see if the press got ahold of who he was. 

“Theo!” Bill grabbed him by the shoulders, cutting off his flow of thought. “Brian’s got friends in high places, do you hear me? It’s a closed court by the judge’s preference. Everything’s need-to-know only. Brian said everyone’s being kept out, even the press. You’ve got the lowest possible profile, even lower than the petty crime cases.” He frowned. “It’s the SDNY courthouse, whatever that means.” 

Theo’s mouth fell open, just a little. “Federal?” 

“Yes.” Bill nodded so hard that it looked like his head might just fly off his shoulders. “He’s somewhere called the MCC.” 

Federal didn’t even begin to describe where Smaug was being held, if Bill was right _and_ had decided to tell Theo the truth. The Metropolitan Correctional Center put Sing-Sing to shame, all two hundred eighty-nine, sky-scraping feet of it plus the basement that they used to march the inmates to the nearby courthouse. He couldn’t imagine a more forbidding place, but God, why? “Bernie Madoff’s the kind of person they hold there,” he said. “Why is Smaug there?” 

“His crimes go far beyond what he did to you,” said Bill, and held up his hand, counting European-style off his thumb. “Immigration fraud – he didn’t disclose to Columbia or to the border why he wanted to come here, obviously. Wire fraud, for the months of emails. Conspiracy to commit murder, which makes him an accessory at the absolute least. Attempt to evade justice. You know our country’s _barely_ started recovering from the immigration paranoia.” Theo nodded. Public stupidity was one of the few things Sanders couldn’t even attempt to fix. “This time, it’s going to work in your favor. They found him in…Kennedy, I think? He’d already booked tickets out to England. Said his mother was unwell.” 

“His mother died fourteen years ago!” Theo exclaimed. “He said he was in mourning when I met him!” And hadn’t Iggy just used that fact to slither into his pants, too. The manipulative asshole started crying when Theo kissed one of his scalier patches, and instead of being honest about his obvious insecurity regarding his skin, he’d tried to pass it off as grief. 

Bill clapped his hands against his thighs and bobbed his head, an ‘I knew it’ look on his face. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Pretty much what Brian told me. Whenever it happened, he’s certainly not got a mother anymore.” 

Smaug was quite possibly the one person in the world who deserved to have at least one dead parent. “So,” Theo said, “immigration fraud.” His heart, he noticed, had calmed down. “And all that stuff’s enough to put him away in federal. Forever?” Bill nodded. “Thank God. How’d they even find him?” 

Bill blinked, obviously a little taken aback. “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “That wasn’t just Brian, Theo. Do you know someone named Bradley Baumann at your university? A professor, I think.” 

“Bard,” Theo said. “Chemistry professor. I think he’s a friend of Morningwood’s. Did he do something?” Bard had never struck him as particularly noteworthy outside of school. The students liked him and he was good at what he did, but the only image in Theo’s head was a pleasant-looking dark-haired guy with facial hair. One of his kids might have shown up at Phil and Caleb’s bar mitzvah – that seemed so long ago, though. 

“Turns out he’s got a bit of a checkered past,” said Bill, and put a cautious hand on Theo’s knee. Theo closed his eyes and allowed the touch. “All right, so when he was in uni, he had some sort of job as a dockworker. Keep in mind that I heard this thirdhand from Brian, so…all right. Bard had this job and he met some unsavory characters. _They_ ended up going on to become customs officials – no one quite knows why they wanted to switch into that job. Cleaned up their act. One of them is in Boston, and the other –“ 

“New York,” Theo said. He could see where this was going. “He has a contact in New York.” Why would Bard pull favors for someone he barely knew? “How did Brian get the information?” 

Bill squeaked suddenly and looked to the side, where Rug reappeared under his arm. Theo figured he’d gone prowling and decided to come back for purposes of being a nuisance. “Rug, don’t surprise me,” Bill told him. Rug climbed into his lap and curled up with a contented grunt, the sight of which made Theo smile. “Yes, you still stink. I’ve got to have you groomed, yes, I have.” He shook his head and looked back at Theo. “Anyway, Brian. Brian contacted the major airports within a few hundred miles. The officials at Logan Airport were apparently very uncooperative until Brian mentioned that you were affiliated with Wentworth.” 

“That’s the guy?” 

“Mm-hm. He called Bard, who called Randall, and the two of them vouched for you enough that this man contacted his friend to get their old team back together.” Bill smiled. “They were very enthusiastic about it, from what Brian said. They wanted to re-form some duo of troublemaking that they called the Black Arrow. Upshot of it is that Smaug’s now in what I hope is a very disgusting holding cell.” 

“God.” His limbs felt like jelly all of a sudden. Theo leaned backwards and landed on the floor, spread-eagle, the heating vent blowing nicely on his sweaty skin. “Morningwood helped me.” 

Bill _tsk_ ed, but made no move to lie beside him. Good, because Theo suspected he would have flinched. Every sensation was coming at him now: sweat, the air in his face, Rug’s purrs, and the shivers running down his arms that reminded him of someone else in the ward, a multiple sclerosis guy with depression and a ‘fine tremor.’ It was almost like he had a fever.“You’re not nearly as much of a pariah as you think you are, Theo,” Bill said. “Randall was worried. Granted, he _was_ rather half-hearted in his argument to keep you at school…” He trailed off. “That doesn’t mean he, er.” 

“Wants me dead,” Theo finished. “I don’t think he wants my blood on his hands.” 

“Definitely not. He took Freddy and me into his house for a night, after…” Bill stifled another noise in his throat. “Sorry, sorry! I shouldn’t talk about that.” 

“Not you,” Theo muttered, throwing an arm over his eyes. He owed even Morningwood now. Everyone had something helpful to contribute except for him, the useless lump. If not for him, nothing in this situation would have happened, going back to the stupid decision he’d made to fuck a weedy redhead after their arguments turned him on. His shivers intensified, and he wrapped his other arm around his abdomen, not that it did any good. “I feel sick.” 

His arm was abruptly pulled away from his face, and he shook when a cool hand touched his forehead. “You feel warm,” said Bill. “Have you picked up something?” 

“Wasn’t around anyone sick,” Theo answered. “Not as far as I know.” Scary noises abounded in the psych ward, but he didn’t remember any coughs or sneezes, or vomiting other than right after an administration of psych meds. “I’m light-headed.” 

“When was the last time you ate?” Bill asked. 

“I,” said Theo, and stopped. There had been the appointment with Dr. Gast this morning, and the routine after-dinner check last night, and between them – what? “I don’t remember. Maybe breakfast. I don’t know if they skipped me today.” 

Bill stroked his fingers across Theo’s forehead. “I’ve got lots for you to eat,” he said. “There’s a bit of everything in the kitchen.” 

Theo started up and found himself on his feet. As far as he knew, he hadn’t even wanted to move, but the instinct to do it – “You cooked?” He hadn’t thought this far ahead. Of course he’d have to eat, wouldn’t he? How could he not eat? “What do you have?” 

“Lots of things,” said Bill, furrowing his brow. “Are you all right? I’ve got things you like. Chocolate, soup, things to drink –“ 

“Not tea!” Theo shouted, and winced as his voice rang in the hall. “No more tea, _please_ , I can’t go to sleep again and…and Valium…” And find out a day later that all his stuff was erased, except when it wasn’t, and he was just a puppet on someone’s strings. _But I deserve it_. His head hurt so badly. “P-please.” 

Bill covered his mouth with his hand again. “Oh, God,” he said, “I didn’t think. Do you want me to throw things out? Or, no.” He shook his head, obviously torn at the idea of wasting food. He was a Hobbit, all right. He didn’t even like to put leftovers down the drain when they went bad, so how could Theo expect him to be okay with throwing a feast out? “Wait. I could eat with you, if you want. You could watch me serve things out of the pan, and I’d eat them with you. Everything’s still in the pots and pans.” 

Theo hugged himself around the chest and belly with both arms, squeezing tightly. _Hug yourself,_ Dr. Gast had taught him. He’d also said that Theo should love himself, but that wasn’t fucking happening. “What do you have?” 

“Chocolate cake,” said Bill, “and lots of soda. No Red Bull, no anything with caffeine, sorry.” He stroked his chin. “I’ve made chicken soup with matzah balls. Sorry if it’s not as good as what you’re used to, but no one would help me with the recipe and I didn’t want to press. And sorry I’m saying sorry so much.” He chuckled, but his eyes were sad. “Er, vegetables are in the fridge, but you don’t have to eat them. I bought some Cadbury’s, too. Food in the hospital can’t be as good as here.” 

“No, it sucks.” Theo pressed his fingers into his ribs. “You promise you’re not poisoning me.” 

Bill momentarily closed his eyes, biting his lip. His forehead creased in an expression of pain. “I swear,” he said. “You’ve got every right to distrust me, though. If you like, I’ll let you serve everything. I’ll have no hand in choosing what part of the food goes to whom.” 

Theo could feel his hands shaking. If he were to be realistic, then he had to admit that there was no way he could serve food without spilling or dropping it everywhere. “I’ll stand behind you and watch,” he said. “And I want a soda.” The only way Bill could get any kind of drug into a soda without opening it was with a syringe, and he didn’t think Bill had access to that kind of stuff for home use. Even if he had at one point, they’d be watching him a hell of a lot more closely now. 

“They’re in the fridge,” said Bill, and got up. “The soup’s warming on the stove. I’ll go take the cover off, yes? Yes.” He gave a nervous laugh. “All right. Er, follow me.” 

How weird that Bill was leading him through his own house – like an out-of-body experience. Theo could only assume that Bill’s realization of the same was the reason for that fucked-up laugh. “Here’s all the food,” said Bill over his shoulder. Behind them, Theo heard the click of Rug’s claws (time to clip them, definitely) on the wooden floor. 

“Yeah,” Theo said, “and there’s a hungry boy behind us. Better watch your soup.” _He can’t have drugged a whole pot_ , he told himself. _It would be stupid to offer to share it with me. You can’t build up an immunity to Valium_. This was not The Princess Bride, and as far as he knew, Bill was no Vizzini. Even if he was short. 

But the kitchen smelled good, anyway. Bill went over to the stove and took the top off his big stockpot while Theo came up behind him. “Smells good,” Theo told him. The soup definitely smelled more like white-people food than the stuff Mama used to make; Bill had been right about that. Looking around, he found a foil-covered baking dish on top of the microwave, where they always stored fresh baking – Rug was too lazy to hop over all the obstacles on the way there. 

Bill rummaged in the cabinet nearest the stove and brought out two bowls, then grabbed two spoons from their drawer. “All right,” he said. “I’d let you choose your portion, but, um, this is soup. It can’t really be done.” He looked apologetically at Theo. “I’ll do that with the cake, though.” 

“Sure.” It came out in a mumble. “No problem. Just…” Theo pointed into the pot. “Anything’s fine. I want two matzah balls.” Even if they were heavy and improperly made, they were matzah balls, and at least that could serve as a link to a life he didn’t know if he could ever enjoy the same way again. 

Bill scooped out both bowls with their huge ladle, then handed one to Theo, who closed his eyes and inhaled. The broth smelled amazing, even if Bill _had_ used too many onions in the stock. After years of Jewish food, he could tell when the number of onions in ersatz Jewish food went from accurate to British. “I want to eat on the floor,” he said, and sat down cross-legged, though he wasn’t sure _why_. His meds could have been making him weird, still. But he knew that already. 

To his credit, Bill didn’t object. He sat down a serviceable distance away, and Theo nodded his head in what he hoped Bill recognized as thanks. “You know, I’ve never eaten on the floor,” Bill remarked, blowing on a spoonful of soup. “Freddy’s asked me a few times. I think I see the appeal now.” 

“Cat’s-eye view,” Theo agreed. Rug poked his head out from behind one of the kitchen chairs, where he sat grooming himself, and made an expression that likely translated to raising a furry eyebrow. “Yes, Rug, we’re talking about you. Come on over.” Rug did, and immediately stuck his nose in Theo’s bowl. Business as usual, then. 

“Theo, don’t let the cat eat the soup,” Bill said. 

“Hey!” Theo snapped. “It’s _my_ food. You trying to control that, too?” He almost whapped himself in the side trying to get his arms around himself again, but this was something a hug wouldn’t fix. This was his fault, not Bill’s, and if he went around yelling at him, then that made him even more of a shitty pond-scum excuse for a human being. “S-sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” 

Bill sighed. “It’s all right,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m at fault here.” He ate some more soup, and Theo hesitantly dug into a matzah ball, careful not to hit Rug with his spoon. “Besides, it’s not as though either of us is unused to cat saliva, right?” 

“That’s right.” Theo patted Rug’s head, then scratched between his ears, which swiveled towards him. Rug withdrew his face and stared sourly at him. “You have bad fishy breath. Now you’ll have bad chicken breath. Better than licking my tongue at night.” That had only happened once; still, he was determined to never let Rug live it down. 

“He’s a disgusting boy,” Bill said, and began to eat in earnest. Nothing could ever keep him away from his food, and Theo couldn’t help but feel grateful. He felt shaky, and not just because he was hungry. Talking drained him pretty badly right about now. 

The kitchen filled up with the sound of slurps, both of humans slurping soup and of Rug washing himself again. Theo’s head – and stomach – felt a hell of a lot better when he’d finished the bowl, and goyische soup or not, he was still tempted to lick the remaining soup out of it. “Can I have more?” he asked instead, and stood. “I can get it myself.” 

“Hm?” said Bill, mouth full of matzah ball, and glanced up from his soup. “Of course,” he finished after he’d swallowed. “You don’t need to ask. It’s your house before mine.” 

“Not if you’re the one who cooks in it,” said Theo. _This banana is disgusting!_ Bill had shouted on the day of their first breakfast together. Theo smiled at the memory, just a little, and went to get more soup. He tried not to think about it, but as soon as Bill moved in, his constipation had become a thing of the past. Physical constipation, at least. 

Emotionally, well, he was still pretty damn fucked up. 

Rug had taken his spot on the floor when he came back. “This is a matter of principle on your part, you know,” Theo told him, “and it’s not going to work. This is the floor, not a chair.” 

“You can move him,” said Bill. 

“You’re right. I _can_ move him.” Theo took advantage of the slippery floor and gave Rug a light push on the belly. Rug slid, got up, and hissed at him before flouncing out of the kitchen towards the pantry. “Hey, Bill, did you feed him?” 

“Earlier, yes. He got wet…” Bill cupped a hand around his ear. “Rug! Stop eating your brother’s food. You’re fat enough as it is.” The crunching from the pantry stopped, but only for a second. Of course. “What a greedy cat he is.” 

Theo shrugged. “Yeah, but we love him,” he said, and started to eat again. “Okay if we don’t talk for a while?” 

“Mm-hm. I’ll just get the cake while you eat.” 

Theo did his best to watch Bill through his eyelashes – the less he looked like the paranoid weirdo that he was, the better. From what he could see, though, Bill didn’t put anything in the cake except a knife and fork. “Looks good,” he said when Bill brought his piece back. “Did you make the frosting?” 

“It’s from a can,” said Bill, shamefaced. “Sorry if it tastes a bit like plastic. I wanted to go to the store this morning, but I was so occupied trying to get Freddy out the door, and then I had a lot of phone calls to make…I forgot.” 

“Don’t apologize,” said Theo. “After everything I did? You made me cake. I don’t care if the frosting…” He trailed off and gulped his soup. Bill didn’t need to hear his self-pity. He didn’t deserve pity, anyway, from himself or anyone else. 

The rest of the soup went down more bitter than before, and he caught Bill looking at him with an expression he couldn’t read. “I’ll go get some cake now,” said Theo, rising awkwardly to his feet. “I, um, I remember where things are. You don’t need to get up.” 

Bill got up anyway and put his hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Theo,” he said, “Smaug’s going to be under a gag order for the rest of his natural life. I know this is a completely random time to say this, but you’re going to be as safe as you can possibly be.” He rested his head between Theo’s shoulder blades, and whether it was because of the news or the touch, Theo felt some tension he hadn’t realized existed leave his shoulders. “It’s the least I can do. The least any of us can do. _Someone_ should’ve tried to help you.” 

“Oh, fuck, no,” Theo said. “Smaug was right, okay? I’m just a sad sack. An emotionally manipulative shit. I don’t need help – I need…” Sackcloth and ashes, or a Catholic-like pilgrimage to Rome to atone, or something. _Something_. Right, he'd thought of lepers earlier, hadn't he? “Don’t help me. It’ll all just get you in the end.” 

“Theo!” Horror filled Bill’s voice. “What did we hug it out for, if not this? I am never letting you go. Can’t believe the reverse isn’t true, to be honest. I spent these two weeks wondering if you’d serve me with papers when you got home. I’m to blame and all our friends know it.” 

Suddenly, he didn’t want cake anymore. Theo sat back down on the floor, wincing at the thump. “Smaug’s gone,” he said. “I’ll tell everyone you’re…I mean…am I going to get better?” He looked up at Bill and shuddered inside at the plaintive pathos in his voice. “I’m still nuts. Just, maybe I won’t be so nuts?” 

“You’re _not_ nuts,” said Bill fiercely, and knelt beside him. “God, we’ll be going around in circles all night. You’re ill. We should’ve realized it earlier, too. Now there’s Dr. Gast and Grindal and other people to help you. You’re going to be fine.” He moved closer. “Do you believe me?” 

“I don’t know,” said Theo. The bone-deep fatigue was creeping back in; he lay down on the floor all over again, but this time, that feverish feeling didn’t return. “What am I gonna do tonight? I can’t write or anything.” 

“Bed?” Bill suggested. 

Now the shivers returned, hard and chilling. Tea and betrayal - _it’s good, what’s in it?_ \- that was what sleeping here meant if Bill… “Not with you. Please, not with you.” He sat up so fast that his head spun, curling up against the cabinets. 

Bill’s eyes glimmered with tears, and guilt stabbed at Theo all over, almost a physical pain. “Of course not,” he said. “I couldn’t expect you to. The things I did last time you slept…were you able to sleep in the ward? At all?” 

“Sometimes,” Theo confessed. “I had horrible dreams.” No, this was all wrong. It was supposed to stay in his head, but the words came spilling out anyway. “I don’t even remember a lot of them, Bill. It was so fucked up and there were these people, they – they screamed all night. Not in my dreams, in real life. Down the hall. They were there for worse things. Sometimes I saw them in the common room and they looked _dead_ , Bill.” Especially their eyes, glazed with a thousand-yard stare to a person. Was it the psych ward that had made them this way, or things that happened before in their own minds? 

Bill swallowed. “Oh, God,” he said, “oh, God. You went through all that?” Theo nodded slowly. “I’ll stay in the guest room,” he said firmly, “as long as you need. Don’t you dare feel guilty, either. I would’ve offered it anyway. Anyway,” he said, dropping his voice conspiratorially, “you do complain about me farting at night.” 

A snort exploded from Theo before he could stop it. “I’m worse.” 

“What’s your point? You’ll still have a bed to yourself.” Bill laughed, but it sounded strained, and he stopped soon enough with a sigh. “As long as you need,” he repeated. “I love you, Theo. I want you to be comfortable. You set the terms for this.” 

As if terms could be set. As if this situation weren’t so unprecedented that it went even beyond ‘weird.’ As if there could be some absolution for him at the end of this. “Thank you.” His limbs moved of their own accord, but as soon as he’d grabbed Bill in a hug, he found he didn’t want to let go. Bill hugged him back hard, and Theo tucked his head into the crook of his neck all over again. If the evening just ended like this, with him falling asleep and sweating against Bill, he couldn’t see how he would ever mind. “I’ll try to get over it soon.” 

“No,” said Bill fiercely. “You let me back in on your own timetable, if you ever decide to. I’m here for you. That means _you_ call the shots. No trying, no anything. Please just heal.” 

“Heal,” Theo repeated. The word brought to mind physical wounds leaking blood and lymph, like the scars on his face that no one noticed anymore. No real knife had entered his brain, but if he could learn to think of his sickness as cuts and breaks, maybe he would find it easier. Maybe. “Can I go to bed?” Whatever time it was, he didn’t care. 

“Of course. I’ll come up with you if you want, or leave you alone. Whichever.” Bill held up his plate. “Don’t worry about cleaning up, either. I see that question you’re about to ask.” It was always so easy to forget that relationships made people psychic, at least when it came to his own. Fuck not meeting Bill earlier. “Just rest.” 

Theo wanted so badly to kiss him, but as he tried to move closer, his battered instincts held him back. However long he was going to be like this, he wished he could reach the end already. “Thank you,” he said, and hoped words would make up for a lack of touch. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too, Theo,” Bill said. “I always will.” 

“Me too. Always.” No kiss, but Theo could touch Bill’s hand on the way out, so he did. “Good night, Bill.” 

“Sleep well, my love,” said Bill. 

He really did intend to brush his teeth. As soon as he’d taken off his shoes and flopped down on the bed, though, Theo found that he had contracted a case of something that Monique called ‘adhesive mattress-itis.’ Crap. De-stinkifying his teeth could wait. “Good night, me,” he mumbled into the pillow, which was smushing his nose and the side of his face. “Go the fuck to sleep.” 

His body had to go defying expectations again, too. Theo knew he shouldn’t have been able to sleep in these circumstances – should have lain awake worrying and occasionally half-slipping into terrifying dreams all night. But he found himself falling (really falling, hard and fast as a bowling ball) into sleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes, and the last thing he remembered was the familiar sensation of Rug climbing up to bite his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The psych ward experiences described here are authentic, as confirmed by someone who spent two multiple-month stretches of time there. The circular thought processes and self-loathing common in those who have been institutionalized or otherwise the victims of severe mental illnesses have also been confirmed as true. 
> 
> Lamictal (lamotrigine) is an anti-epileptic drug that has also been approved for use in treating bipolar disorder. It lacks the myriad and dangerous side effects of lithium, which for a long time was the sole drug used to treat bipolar. 
> 
> I love feedback, and can be found both here and - as usual - at godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr.


	29. Take Us the Foxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things, and all periods of Hillel-related inactivity, must come to an end. 
> 
> (And we're back!)

Freddy wasn’t letting go of his hand. 

It had been nice for the last five minutes, but there was a limit, and palm sweat was it. “Freddo, let go,” Theo said. “I have an itch.” 

“You said you had an itch when we got here,” said Freddy stubbornly, looking up at Theo with his little face set, “and I said you can scratch your head when you get home. You can still scratch it at home. You should’ve had a shower, Uncle Theo.” 

“Yeah,” said Theo, “but this time, I’m scratching my crotch.” 

“Ew!” Freddy squealed, and let go of Theo’s hand. Theo wiped his hands on his pants as surreptitiously as he could and took the opportunity to scratch said crotch, which he indeed had to do. “Are you going to do that when we get inside, Uncle?” 

Theo shook his head. “Not anymore, kiddo. Not anymore.” He sucked his cheeks into his mouth and stared up at the Hillel sign. His legs felt like lead, and five minutes of standing there without going in hadn’t made him any more eager to face the music and everyone else. “Bill?” 

He didn’t need to say anything else. Bill lightly touched his back with one hand, as if hesitant, but now Theo wanted his touch. “We don’t have to go in, Theo,” he said softly. “Save it for another week? If you want, we can get Chinese food and go home.” 

The cold December air gusted around them, and Theo shivered. He’d have to decide soon, because no way would he make his family stand out here all night. “Go in,” he said. The words scraped his throat on the way up. “Let’s go in, I mean. We’ll have to see everyone sooner or later. Else they’ll think I’m just locked up in the basement – sorry,” he said off Bill’s wince. “God, I’m sorry. That was a shitty joke.” 

“It should be a pee-y joke,” said Freddy, “’cause you said you peed yourself in there. Is that okay to say?” He scuttled closer, leaning into Theo with his head nearly in his armpit. “Dr. Gast said you’re supposed to do humor on the gallows. You won’t get hanged if you do that.” 

“Sure,” Theo replied. Freddy’s explanation was funnier than the real meaning of gallows humor, anyway. He couldn’t help smiling at the thought of convicted criminals spouting off the darkest shit in their heads to avoid the noose. _How much wood would a hangman chuck if a hangman could chuck wood?_ No, that would probably get them hanged faster. “And remember, I haven’t peed myself once since I got out of there. Not deliberately, anyway.” It hadn’t been pee that he felt on his sheets when he woke up sweaty the night before, but the gash Bill had left was still too raw for Theo to invite him into his bed. He wasn’t much in the mood for sex, anyway. The antidepressant and Lamictal were battling it out inside him, and his penis was the casualty. 

“If they say anything to you or Uncle Bill,” Freddy said, “I’ll tell them no. No, you can’t do that! That’s what I’ll say.” He shifted to stand in front of Theo and put his hands on his hips, the world’s smallest superhero. “Uncle Bill made you crazy, but you were already crazy. It was like throwing up. Sometimes, you’ve got to do it.”  
“So I’m ipecac, then?” Bill asked. “Apt, I suppose. Theo?” He patted Theo’s shoulder again. “If we’re going to go in, we’d better do it now. We’re late enough and I don’t think you really want to make a grand entrance.” 

Damn right he didn’t. “Yeah, good point,” Theo said. He swallowed hard. “Come on, you two, take my hands. United front.” This would be better than sitting at home another night, watching the same Netflix shows and smelling how much the litter boxes needed scooping. At some point, he needed to get back into some kind of routine, even if he wasn’t teaching until January. Dr. Gast insisted on that. 

Wordlessly – and slowly, because as smart as he was, Freddy still had the short legs of any other seven-year-old – they ascended the steps to Hillel. Theo closed his eyes as he opened the door and warmth, augmented by the smell of food, washed over him. He’d come here so many times; why did it feel foreign now? 

“I’m ready if you’re ready, Uncle Theo,” Freddy whispered, and somehow, that gave Theo the courage to stride forward and stand in the doorway to the social hall. 

Suddenly, what felt like a hundred eyes (but probably numbered only about thirty at most) were staring at him. “Hi,” he said, raising his hand in an awkward wave. “I’m stable. And, um, we’re back. Is there anywhere to sit?” 

Omer was the first to speak. _Omer_ , of all people. “We’ve finished the _brachot_ ,” he said, pointing stiffly at a nearby table, “but you can sit there. You know, with Dinah. You know what I mean.” 

One down. At least Omer was on his side. “Thanks,” Theo said, trying to communicate his best _oh, dear God, thank you, you ancient fucker_ look in the scant seconds that their eyes met. “Come on, Bill. Come on, Freddy. Let’s get some food.” 

Gad was frozen in the food line, a serving spoon in his hand, like some sick parody of déjà vu that mimicked the night Bill had first come here. Theo remembered it clear as crystal, four and a half years ago or no. “No need to stand there,” he told Gad. “Some people have to eat.” 

Gad mumbled something into his beard and crab-walked to the end of the line, all the better to keep an eye on them with an expression Theo didn’t know how to read. He was willing to abandon apple cinnamon kugel to stare at them? This had gone too far. 

“Hey,” Theo said, and cleared his throat. “Hey. People. I’m crazy, but I’m medicated, okay? I’m not going to start screaming or rip my clothes off or anything. _Med-i-ca-ted_. You’re making it a hell of a lot worse staring at me like you are than if you were just normal. Can we please try to act normal? Because if I’m not welcome here, we can leave and eat at home.” 

“No!” Freddy exclaimed. He pulled on Theo’s shirt. “Please, Uncle Theo. I want to stay. The smell’s making me hungry.” 

Theo pointed a thumb at him. Goddammit, the kugel smell was making him hungry, too. Was that apricot chicken in the dish next to it? He was an absolute sucker for that stuff. “You heard the kid. _Sheket bevaka-_ hey, _sha_. Or, you know, talk.” 

He resolutely turned around, Bill at his elbow, and made a conscious effort not to look behind him as he piled food on his plate. “I missed Hillel food,” he murmured. “Can’t believe I missed Thanksgiving, too. If Benny’s gotten rid of –“ Mother of all things good, there they were: Benny’s special pumpkin bars, glistening in the light like a beacon, reminding him of the one good thing from the night he almost lost himself to madness. Funny that they weren’t a trigger. Maybe Benny’s food was just that good. 

“Chicken with the orange stuff,” Freddy said on his right. “Ooh, I want that. Can I have the challah rolls?” 

“Yes, sweetheart, go ahead,” said Bill. 

Theo piled his plate high and didn’t make a single move to face the rest of the room until he heard stilted conversation start up behind him. “At least they listened,” he whispered more to himself than to Bill, and turned back when he heard the general babble reach an acceptable number of decibels. By that time, he had so much food on his plate that it threatened to fall off. 

He kept his head high as he wove through the tables to join his sister. “Hey,” he said, looking off into the middle distance, and sat down. Blinders like a horse; that was what Dr. Gast had told him to do when he was nervous. God, was he ever. “How’ve things been?” 

Dinah made an indecipherable squeaking noise. “Mm,” she said after a few seconds. “You know, not much. We went out for Chinese on Thanksgiving. Doing the Jew Christmas thing a little early this year.” 

“Yeah, sorry I missed it,” said Theo, and bit into his first challah roll. He saw more people getting up out of the corner of his eye, probably for seconds given how long he’d taken to get to dinner, and his stomach unknotted a little. Food was the great smoother-over, and its siren call trapped everyone eventually. “Wish I could’ve been there.” He tried to keep his tone light and airy, as if he were just apologizing for missing the holiday due to a business trip or something. 

“We put Greggy with a sitter,” Boaz said. Thank goodness he was in Dee’s life – he always knew how to defuse a situation. “He’s with one tonight, too. I’m right sick of him eatin’ my food. He’s got his own food, hasn’t he, Dee? But he still puts his sticky hands on mine. Not even supposed to have real people food yet.” 

Theo looked across the table under his eyelashes, in the guise of deciding what to eat first, and gave Phil and Caleb a once-over. Last time he’d seen the kids look this squirmy and uncomfortable, they’d been burying their father. “Good chicken,” he said. “Isn’t it good? Bill, you like apricot chicken, right?” He addressed the last sentence to the shadow that fell over the left side of his vision as Bill sat down with Freddy. “Bill can’t make it nearly as well as Benny does.” 

“Yeah, that’s Benny,” Phil murmured. Theo wasn’t sure, but he thought that might just be normal teenage sullenness. Goddamn fifteen-year-olds – and Phil was almost sixteen now, wasn’t he? Theo clenched a fist under the table. _Smaug took so much of my life away from me_. 

Caleb, at least, was more of a sport than his brother. “How’re you doing, Uncle Theo?” he asked, looking up and hesitantly meeting Theo’s eyes. He’d grown since the last Theo could remember, too. “You feeling better at all?” 

“ _Caleb_ ,” Dinah said in a heated whisper. 

“No, it’s okay,” Theo told her. “Yes, Caley, I’m feeling better.” He took a huge bite of challah, which slid down his throat with some difficulty even when he’d chewed it. Mama always did tell him not to inhale his food like that. “Look, Dee, it’s not a state secret. I had a bipolar flare, I have a diagnosis now, and I’m better. The responsible party is in prison. Why is everyone avoiding me?” 

Dinah’s mouth thinned. “No reason, I suppose,” she said in a voice that could have sucked wet pavement dry. But clearly that wasn’t all of it. Theo could swear her hair was expanding, and as her mouth compressed tighter and tighter, he braced himself for impact. 

It wasn’t long in coming. “Dammit!” Dinah shouted, and slammed her fist on the table. Every eye in the room was immediately on them. “Theo, why are you pretending that the _responsible party_ isn’t sitting right there? Why are you still with him?” She spun around in her seat, giving Theo the transient impression that this was a remake of The Exorcist, and fixed her gaze on Bill. “You nearly fucking killed my brother! You have the nerve to sit here and eat our food and pretend that –“ 

“Dinah!” Theo interjected. “My marital status is none of your damn business.” He should’ve known it would come to this. “Bill, this was a bad idea. We should leave.” 

Dinah’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm in a grip so hard that it hurt. “You’re sitting right back down,” she said. “This isn’t over. We’re _having_ this conversation, Theo. It happened right here. We all saw it! Why are you defending him?” 

“He’s allowed to eat food,” Freddy said. “It’s for everyone who’s hungry.” 

Bill sighed. “Freddy, I appreciate the input,” he began but stopped as the last person Theo ever wanted to give his opinion (because talk about unstable, Jesus) stood up on his table. “Oh, God.” 

“Fuckin’ right!” Noah shouted. “You made him crazy. Means you’re not welcome here, asswipe. You don’t know the first thing about Judaism. First thing is you preserve life. Some nurse! No better than my dad.” Dwight, with the sort of murder in his eyes he usually reserved for conversations after he’d arrested rapists, yanked on his leg. “No, shut up, Dwight.” 

“No, _you_ shut up!” Freddy howled. Noah snapped his mouth shut, and Freddy clambered up on the table, knocking over Theo’s piece of challah as he went. “Sorry,” he whispered, and then raised his voice again, clenched little fists on his hips and legs apart. “You all shut up!” he repeated. “I’m allowed to say that if you’re being awful. Uncle Theo got sick because of Smaug and Uncle Bill made him better like a throw-up. He should’ve done it a different way, but now Uncle Theo’s better because of him. He’s got pills and he sees Dr. Gast and he doesn’t want to die.” He swept his head around, covering everyone in the room, all of whom Theo was weirdly pleased to see looked ashamed. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Noah. You’re mean, and your brother helped Uncle Bill do what he did, so you’re a hippo.” 

“Hypocrite,” Theo couldn’t resist whispering. Damn if this wasn’t better than the speech from Braveheart, though. Never before had Freddy proven himself a Derensky through and through like this, no matter his name. 

“Yeah, that,” Freddy said, and stomped his foot. “Danny helped tear everything up. He did, I heard it! And the stuff isn’t gone, anyway. Uncle Bill put it on a flash drive for when Uncle Theo’s better. So you all stop being horrid to him and you let Uncle Theo love him!” 

Noah’s eyes sprang wide open. “What the fuck? How did you find out about that?” 

“Wait, what?” Dinah got up from the table and stomped over to Noah, who scrambled down off his own table just as suddenly as he’d gotten up. “Noah, your brother helped push Theo into almost killing himself? You _knew_? What the hell is going on?” 

“Yeah, I knew!” Noah shot back. “He came and told me. I almost killed him. What do you think, I’m gonna kill him for real? My brother wasn’t the perp here. It was your fuckin’ brother-in-law!” 

“Hold on a minute,” said Danny, who, Theo noticed, had spent Noah’s initial shenanigans looking very much like he wanted to curl up and die. “Bill, you said you weren’t going to say anything. Who have you been telling?” 

“He’s just told Miss Monique. You can’t make him not talk to his friends,” Freddy said. The buzz of conversation had started up again, but his voice cut through it all loud and clear. “I heard him. If everyone’s blaming him, then you have to share because it’s fair.” 

Now Bill shot up, making Theo flinch at the sudden movement. _Goddammit, I hate this disease_ , he thought. Bipolar was turning him as weak as Samson post-haircut. “Are you telling me,” Bill began in a low tone that rose with every word, “that you’ve sat here and let me take sole blame for weeks? You –“ 

“Yes, Bill.” Dinah enunciated each word coldly and crisply, the ‘s’ coming out bitten-off and sharp. “We’ve let you take sole blame, because apparently no one confesses to anything around here anymore. Daniel…” 

Danny threw his hands up into the air, a shield in front of his face, probably afraid that Dee was about to hit him with the way she was advancing on him. “And have you treat me the way you’re all treating him? Call me a coward, but no!” he yelled. “I’m not even sure Bill deserves this, if you must know. You should have seen the email chain back and forth between Theo and this Smaug character. Any longer and Theo would have gone and killed himself no matter what Bill did, and as a lawyer, I’m pretty sure that was Smaug’s intention!” 

“Everyone speak up over there!” Omer said, and waggled a hand next to his ear. “My hearing aid’s out of battery. What’s with this Smaug?” 

“He’s an old tryst – you know what?” Danny shook his head as he cut himself off. “Oreet, out of the room. All the rest of you kids leave, too. This is grown-up stuff.” 

_Oops_. Theo looked around the room. Adults could be trusted for the most part, and even the less trustworthy ones here would probably rather face drawing and quartering than reveal what he was about to reveal, once they learned it. “Okay, all of you kids get out of here,” he said. “Phil and Caleb, that means you. Galil, please take your sister. Oreet, go with them.”

Now that he thought about it, teenagers or not, the kids _were_ way too young to hear the details of this particular ‘old tryst’. Theo suspected the story would damage their collective psyche a lot more than even the story of the three-way he’d once had in a club bathroom that ended with everyone giggling over the size of each other’s dicks. “Danny’s right,” he said. “Freddy, Phil, Caleb, out. Galil, please take your sister and go with them. I know I can’t order you, but bear with me here.” 

“I’m staying.” Freddy crossed his arms and pouted. “This is about Uncle Theo, so it’s about me, too.” 

For a moment, Theo was tempted to allow it. Freddy would find out his secret identity sooner or later, probably even before he sent The Hobbit to his agent. _The Hobbit_ \- a pang pierced his stomach. He had to finish that soon. Soon as it stopped making his heart race, anyway. “Yeah, you too,” he said. “Sorry, kid.”

Freddy pursed his lips; Theo could practically hear him wavering. “Okay,” he finally said, and got down off the table. “But I’m going to play Truth or Dare with Phil and Caleb and Oreet and Galil, and eat all the sweeties in Omer’s office until my stomach hurts.” 

Theo waved his hand. “Whatever, Freddo. Those threats aren’t new. Just get your butt out of here for a few minutes, okay? Someone will come tell you when it’s okay to come back in.” He fixed his nephews with the stink eye. “You two, _out_. Omer, I’ll pay for new candy if you need it. I just need the kids out of here.” 

Phil and Caleb exchanged a look, then loudly got up from the table (thanks to their praying-mantis legs and outsized feet, no doubt) and ran off. The rest of the kids were quick on their heels, but all the same, Theo looked out the door to make sure they had really gone before he closed it.

After the mass exodus of minors, Theo gave the door a decisive nod that was probably unnecessary, then went over to Danny’s table. Probably a good idea to make sure he couldn’t escape. “Okay,” he said. “You guys want the details? You’ll get them. Yes, Smaug’s an ‘old tryst’ of mine.” He didn’t make air quotes, but it was a near thing. “I made the mistake of banging him, and as someone who’s certifiably crazy, I can actually say that the man’s a fucking psycho. He came off as way too intense from the beginning and it creeped me out, so I left after we slept together. Unfortunately for me, he was smart enough to figure out my secret identity. He threatened me several times over the next few years.” 

Gad raised a bushy eyebrow. “Secret identity?” 

Oh, great, double oops. Theo grimaced. Good thing the kids were gone for the moment. No doubt they would come roaring back in later with some complaint or other, but for now, he could talk about that secret identity within a safe window of time. He wouldn’t have to worry about swearing, either. “Okay,” he said as he walked to the center of the room. “What I’m about to tell you can go no farther than here, got it? I like my privacy. I especially like being able to have my phone number listed so students can call me if they have a crisis. I need a show of hands to see that people got it.” 

“You heard him,” said Dwight, and at that, every hand in the room went up. “Looks like that’s all of them, Theo. Keep going.” 

Sometimes, it was nice to have a friend who could double as a megaphone when needed. “Thanks, Dwight,” Theo told him. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned to address the room at large. “Okay. For those of you who aren’t in the know and haven’t already figured it out, I’m T.D. Darrens. Smaug knew, and he threatened me with it, among other things.” 

“What’d you say?” Omer shouted. “My battery’s low!” He pointed, completely unnecessarily, to his hearing aid. 

“ _T.D. Darrens!_ ” Theo yelled back. As icebreakers for momentous news went, Dane’s crack about the Jewish Mafia among them, this wasn’t bad. “Get a new battery, Omer. I swear, I’ll pay for it if you can’t.” 

Omer stuck a finger in his ear. “Did you say T.D. Darrens?” 

“Sure he did,” said Benny, who had at some point vacated his place behind the food line to sit with Bram. “Can’t believe none of you lot have figured it out. Simple pattern recognition is what it is – T.D. Darrens, Theodor Derensky. It sounds the same. I’m a bit surprised no one’s ever come banging down Theo’s door ‘cause they’ve figured it out, too.” 

“Thanks, Benny.” Theo waved a hand at him. “Long answer short, I’m hiding in plain sight. Smaug knew because he figured it out when I banged him at the young and stupid age of ‘early thirties.’ He’s some kind of evil sadist genius, and he wanted revenge, so that’s how we got here.” 

Gad, arguably the whole reason this conversation was even happening in the first place, looked around wildly. “T.D. Darrens?” he echoed. Theo was going to get very sick of hearing that name before long. “Are you…can you… _lo y’khol l’he’emeen_ …” 

“English, please,” Theo told him. “Sorry, but I can’t really translate in my head right now.” Not after such a short time spent getting fucking Clozaril out of his system. 

“What the _hell!_ ” Gad shouted. Theo winced, and Gad’s next words came out just a fraction quieter, although no less harsh. “You’re famous? You hid it?” 

Theo clenched his jaw; it took a few seconds of gritting his teeth before he could talk again. Gad had no fucking idea. “If you ever had a student crash on your couch because she was trying to get away from her boyfriend,” he said, “you’d hide whatever famous identity you had, too.” 

“Yes, but…” 

“I like having a normal life,” Theo said, raising his voice. “Whatever passes for a normal life when it’s me, anyway. I also don’t want paparazzi coming after you guys. Can you imagine what it would do to Oreet’s head, being scrutinized like that?” 

Danny flinched at the mention of his sister’s name, as Theo half-expected, and of course Gad picked up on it. The man was a bloodhound, or – given his coloring and blocky build – maybe a redbone coonhound. “What were you doing, helping Bill pull that stunt?” Gad demanded. “You knew about this T.D. Darrens business?” 

“No wonder he wanted the kids out of here,” Sima muttered. 

Theo had no idea if she actually wanted him to acknowledge that, but given the circumstances, he decided to go for it. “Kids can’t keep secrets, right,” he said. Sima nodded. “Gad, you knew I keep Danny on retainer. This is why. What’d you think it was for?” 

Gad looked down at the table. “Kind of thought it was just as a favor to him. Dinah’s the one who does your taxes.” 

“Hey!” Danny shouted indignantly, at the same time as Dinah pointed at Gad and said “Theo pays me for that!” Then, hilariously, they took a long look at each other and de-puffed, if humans could even do that. “I do a lot for him,” Danny continued. “I intercede with Theo’s agent, and she can be scary. I go over his contracts. I help with all his charitable contributions. Do you have any idea how often this man suddenly decides he wants to give ten grand to an animal shelter? Or some random off the street, God help me.” 

“That was _once_ ,” Theo said. “She’s doing great, by the way, thanks for asking.” Okay, this was getting way too off-topic. “Anyway, yes. I’ve had this pen name since I was twenty-five. I’d like to get past that and focus on the fact that this mess was Smaug’s fault, not Bill’s.” He made a slow rotation in place to emphasize the urgency of the situation with eye contact. Bram, unique among everyone, looked almost bored; Theo wouldn’t be surprised if Bram had somehow figured it out the day they met. “Smaug’s. Fault.” 

“The man is dangerous,” Brian said mildly from his corner, eyes fixed on the phone in his hand. “One doesn’t land in federal prison for just anything. Immigration fraud with the intention to goad someone into suicide, that’s serious.” 

Theo was utterly grateful for his input, not least because everyone’s attention shifted away from him. “Intention to…” Dinah began. Her throat moved convulsively, and in that second, she could have been that ten-year-old all over again. _Why was Papa screaming at you, Theo?_ But now the danger came from Theo himself, and he couldn’t protect her. 

Brian nodded and folded his hands in front of him, the picture of an aging sage. Who the hell did he think was – Rabbi Akiva? “It’s likely that Drake Ignatius Smaug would have goaded Theo to either publicly ruin his career or commit suicide if no one had intervened.” 

The casual tone froze the pit of Theo’s stomach. Brian, or someone else, could easily have used that same calm tone to recite how Theo was a pillar of the community or some shit at his funeral. How close had he been to letting death grab him that night down in the icy dirt where Mama and Papa lay? 

Had he cheated death? 

“Are you saying Bill helped him?” Dinah’s voice broke through Theo’s dark thoughts. “By drugging him?” 

“Didn’t you hear him?” Danny retorted. “He would have died if Bill didn’t. And you didn’t seem to notice when I said the exact same thing, by the way!” 

Well, of course not. Brian was significantly more of an authority on this kind of thing than Danny was, and his word probably carried a lot more weight in Dinah’s head. Theo suppressed a smile; this was not the time for inappropriate reflexes. 

“That’s so easy for you to say,” Dinah said. “Of course you’re defending him. You just don’t want us to…to disown you or something.” 

_What?_ “Wait, you’re trying to disown Bill?” Theo interjected. “Haven’t you been listening to a fucking word I’m saying? Bill and I already talked through this! I’d be dead if it weren’t for him! Don’t I get a goddamn say, or am I just your centerpiece?” He dimly realized that his voice had gone up loud enough that it could maybe be considered a shout, possibly even a scream, but he didn’t care. “None of you did a thing if you even noticed something wrong. He did! And he asked for help! You want to make me better, stop talking over me and quit putting Bill up on the cross.” A few people looked indignant at that, so he gulped and backpedaled. “Like a common criminal. The Romans did that to a hell of a lot of people.” 

“He is a common criminal,” Noah said. 

The edges of Theo’s vision went black. “Go fuck yourself,” he snarled. Noah’s mouth dropped open. “You think I’m too crazy to decide for myself, don’t you?” He didn’t need an answer, not with the expression on Noah’s face. Sometimes the kids and their Tumbler or whatever were right; ableism could come even from your fellow crazies. He’d learned more than a few things from his students over the years. “Well, here I am. Sound of mind and body, and I’m saying that if you’re so determined to kick Bill out of our group, then I’m going, too. Forever.” He strode back to where Bill sat, frozen in place, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Bill. We’re going. Really going this time.” 

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Bill said fervently, and stood up so quickly that his empty plate fell on the floor. “Right.” He took Theo’s hand, and the two of them started speed-walking towards the social hall door. 

“Theo, wait,” Boaz called from behind him. 

“You heard me!” Theo said, not even bothering to turn around. “You people don’t have to like Bill. I can’t make you like anyone. God knows I don’t want to try – that’s risky territory. Just, enough with the icicle treatment, ‘cause _my husband_ did the only thing that pulled me away from Smaug. What we do to resolve the stuff he did is private, and none of you are invited behind closed doors.” He still couldn’t sleep in the same bed as Bill, but someday soon, he _would_. He could feel it in his bones. Hell of a lot better than what his so-called friends and family were doing. “Bill, let’s grab Freddy. It’s probably safe for the kids to come back in.” 

He’d just touched the door to push it open when arms around his waist all but knocked the wind out of them. “Theo, don’t go,” Dinah said against his back. “Please. You don’t have to…” 

“I’m not bluffing,” he replied, “in case that’s what you’re thinking.” His stomach _hurt_ just thinking about giving up those friendships – Dwight especially, even if that Dwight came with Noah. He hadn’t failed to notice that Dwight wasn’t part of the discussion about how much of a shit Bill apparently was. “I just refuse to hang around people who try to fuck my husband over.” 

Someone cleared an indignant throat behind him. Theo didn’t need eyes in the back of his head to figure out who. “Doesn’t mean you should start piling on Danny, either,” he said obligingly. “What Bill did, it…” His tongue was suddenly loaded with useless words, gummy and sticky as rotting leaves. Fucking meds, fucking _Clozaril_! Weeks after the IV, his brain still betrayed him in these weird random points when it completely jumped the tracks. He shook his head, furious at himself, and tried to find his thought again. “What Bill did.” Right, there it was. “It was really dubiously ethical at best. I absolutely know that. _Let me handle it._ ” He tapped one of Dinah’s hands. “Also, please let go of me.” 

The hands slipped off his waist, and suddenly he could breathe again. “Tell us what we need to do, Theo,” Dwight said from the back of the room. His gentle tone unknotted Theo’s abdomen even more. For the first time that night, someone was requesting something from him, not demanding it. “Please.” 

“Okay.” Theo turned back to the social hall in time to see Dinah take her seat again. He breathed in deeply, put his hands over his diaphragm to steady himself like Dr. Gast showed him, and breathed out again on a count of eight. “Just get one thing straight in your heads. I’m crazy, not stupid. You’re all treating me like I’m a kid who’s not too bright.” He glanced at Bill, still at his side. “I wasn’t any less bipolar before my episode. The diagnosis doesn’t change who I am, okay? Theodor Shlomo Derensky, forty-six years old, two hundred and who-the-fuck-knows pounds. I’m perfectly capable of understanding the world around me and making decisions. Got it?” 

“Jesus,” Dwight said. “He hasn’t sounded that much like a teacher in months.” 

Theo grinned. It didn’t feel strange and fake, definitely a first since the loony bin. “See? I’m getting better. I told you people I’m medicated.” 

The light-headed, whooshy vertigo that reverberated through him when he sat down reminded him unpleasantly of every time he had a near-miss on the steps, but this time, it was from relief. His brain wasn’t buying the spate of good fortune, though. “Shit,” he said. “The kids are still out there.” 

“Do you want me to go get them?” Bill asked. 

“As much as I appreciate the offer, no, I can do it.” _Sorry_ , he added in his head, and hoped that his eyes conveyed the same sentiment. Bill might be raring to get out of the room, and understandably so, but Theo would pull the mental illness card to get out of this awkward situation if he had to. He’d damn well earned it. 

Just as Freddy had threatened, the kids were all playing Truth or Dare in the office when he got there. Theo took one look at their set-up and decided not to ask why there was a bunch of candy laid out in a pentagram shape in the middle of a kid circle. His sanity wouldn’t be able to handle that explanation, much less why Freddy was standing in the very center with his pants over his head. “Hey, we’re done talking about sensitive stuff,” he said. “You can come back. Thanks for waiting, by the way.” 

“You’re welcome, Uncle,” Freddy said into his corduroys. 

“Put your pants back on. Your cousins better not have been making you do anything weird.” He glared at Phil and Caleb for good measure. “You two are more than old enough to know better.” 

Freddy pulled the pants off his head, which he vigorously shook. “No,” he said. “It was truth. Galil asked what was my favorite thing about today and I said new Spongebob boxers. Then he said he didn’t believe me, so I _had_ to show everyone, Uncle.” 

All right, maybe his sanity could handle it. “Just let people draw their own conclusions from now on,” Theo said. “It’s rude to take your pants off in front of other people. Especially when some of them are girls.” Geula was sucking noisily on a piece of candy and didn’t look too bothered, but she wasn’t the only girl in the room. “Oreet, I hope they didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.” 

Oreet, only in the circle by the barest definition of the word ‘in,’ shrugged and turned a page of her book. “He’s seven,” she said. “It’s not a big deal.” She glanced up at Theo and raised a suspiciously Noah-like eyebrow. “Don’t worry, I’m not telling Danny.” 

“Thanks,” Theo said; it came out much more fervent than he intended. He needed more trouble with Danny like he needed a hole in his head. It was possible he actually needed a hole in his head more. Did they still do trepanation? Medical history wasn’t his specialty, but from what he remembered, it worked for various illnesses of the head – unlike a Danny Reisberg snit. 

Freddy put on his pants and the rest of the kids got up without complaint. “No, hold on, leave that,” Theo said when Galil went to pick up the candy on the floor. “Give Omer a mind screw when he comes in here.”

Galil cocked his head. “Really?” 

“Small pleasures, kid,” Theo told him. “Small pleasures.” 

Galil shrugged – good kid, that one – and followed him. Theo took that as an auspicious omen that the evening might end a bit farther away from a meltdown than it had begun. 

A few people had resumed their previous places at the food table when he got back with everyone’s spawn. Benny was back up there with his serving spoons, cutting apart single-serve portions from the various foil dishes, so Theo joined him. “What’s the word on the street?” he whispered. “Sorry, metaphorically.”

“All quiet on the western front, if you want metaphor,” Benny whispered back. He plopped a huge piece of kugel onto a plate and handed it to Theo. “Here, get your strength up. Can’t believe y’had it in you to go off like that.” 

“Can’t have people insulting my husband, can I?” He went for a jocular tone, and hoped to hell it didn’t come out as shaky as he feared. He was going to have to re-learn a sense of deadpan humor like a coma patient learning to walk. Or something. Not like his sense of humor had ever been comprehensible to people, anyway. 

“You put the candy in a _what now?_ ” he heard Gad yelp as he went back to his seat, and giggled as quietly as he could. Small pleasures indeed. 

Theo’s head cleared at an alarmingly fast rate once he had some food in him. No matter if they dropped the bomb, he decided, he wasn’t leaving his dinner again for love or money. It screwed up his head too much. 

“Uncle Theo!” Freddy poked his arm. “I bet I can put a whole pumpkin bar in my mouth. Want to see?” 

“Oh, God, no,” Theo said before he could think about it. Freddy’s face fell. “Sorry, Freddo. With all the pumpkin bar you already have on your face, looks like you’ve already tried.” He feinted to the side and grabbed a napkin, brandishing it playfully in front of Freddy as if to forcibly wipe his face. 

“No!” Freddy cried, and dodged. “I’ve got it myself!” He wiped off the pumpkin bar and then made a mildly hilarious face at Theo, eyes crossed and tongue out in a rolled-up tube. “Are we going to go soon?” he asked, voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m kind of…” 

Theo took Freddy’s nearest hand and squeezed it in his own. “Overwhelmed?” he suggested, and Freddy nodded as fast and hard as a bobblehead. “Me too. I think we just need to stay a few more minutes to keep up appearances, and then we can get out of here. Does that sound good to you?” Another nod. “Good. Glad we see eye-to-eye. Where’s your Uncle Bill?” 

“Over there with Bram,” Freddy said, and pointed. Theo followed his finger and, out of instinct, did a quick scan of the room. Good, no one looked like they were about to start another riot. Even Noah had subsided into a kind of smoldering pout, slumped in his seat next to Dwight. And there was Brian, glued to his phone as usual – 

Had he even moved in the last ten minutes? And what the hell was that expression on his face? 

“Freddy,” Theo began, “does Brian look okay to you?” His own brain probably wasn’t the most reliable source right now. 

Freddy gamely shrugged and squinted at the Feldmans’ table. “Yes, I think so,” he said. “He looks really worried. He’s old, right? Is he going to have a heart attack, Uncle Theo?” 

“God, I hope not,” Theo said. “He’s only fifty-four.” Weird that he remembered that when he’d forgotten where his toothpaste was this morning and been forced to use Freddy’s Aquafresh, because he was still one messed-up bastard who couldn’t share a bathroom with his husband, either. “That’s not that old.” _Old enough to have old man sex with a oh fuck._ “Know what? I’ll go see if he’s doing okay. You never know how a heart attack will present. Maybe you’ve saved his life, huh?” He raised an eyebrow at Freddy. 

Freddy rolled his eyes. It was a move Theo recognized, given that Phil and Caleb had been doing it to him since the second they learned how. Damn nephews, teaching his kid all the wrong things. He was so proud of them. “He probably isn’t, you know,” he said in a high-handed tone. “You should go check if it makes you feel better.” 

“You crack me up, kid,” Theo said, but got up to do just that anyway. 

He dodged around Geula, who seemed to have decided that sitting in the middle of the floor where everyone needed to walk was just fine and dandy, and made his way to Brian. The situation looked worse up close; Brian was downright hunched over his phone. “Brian?” Theo tapped him on the shoulder. “Please tell me you’re okay. Freddy and I are worried.” He frowned when Brian just sat there, still tapping away. “Brian?” 

Brian startled in place in the weirdest delayed reaction that Theo had ever seen, and his phone almost fell out of his hands. “Theo!” He regained control of both the phone and his composure in a few smooth moves, squinting hard at Theo. “What are you doing over here?” 

“You look like you’re about to pop a blood vessel,” Theo said. “Can you put your phone down for a few minutes or something?” Shit. That was rude. “Is this because of what I said about Smaug and everything? I am so sorry about that. I just…” He made a fist with his left hand and slid his thumb in and out just for something to do with his hands, stupid _clumsy_ hands, because otherwise they’d start shaking. “Bill deserves more than what he was getting.” 

“Smaug?” Brian emitted – there was really no better word for it – an uncharacteristically hysterical giggle. “Theo, you’re not going to have to worry about Smaug. Ever.” 

Theo frowned. “Yeah, because you got him put in federal. Thank you so much for that, by the way.” Guilt stabbed at him as he realized that he’d never thanked Brian for that, and it had been weeks. Surely there was a statute of limitations on the time it took for delayed thank-you notes to go from merely gauche to downright negligent. Then again, that kind of thing seemed like Brian’s idea of fun, so maybe it was just his pleasure. 

“No, Theo,” Brian said. “You’re not going to have to worry about him because he’s _dead_.” 

Theo’s stomach abruptly dropped to the floor. “ _What?_ ” His ringing ears dimly picked up on the fact that a hush had just fallen over the room. “What? Please…” 

“Smaug is dead,” Brian repeated. “He was knifed.” 

The noise in the room exploded just as surely as if Brian had dropped a real bomb rather than a verbal one. Theo went down just as quickly, except that instead of dropping dead to the floor, he dropped into the nearest chair. _Smaug is dead. He was knifed. Smaug is dead. Smaugisdeadsmaugisdeadsmaugisdeadhewasknifed._ Smaug was dead. “Are you sure?” he whispered hoarsely. No, Iggy was trying to get him again, and he wasn’t about to fall for it this time.

“I’m sure.” 

Suddenly, there was a hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Who told you that?” Bill asked, reassuringly close to Theo’s right ear. “You’d better not be lying to us, Brian. Look at him, he’s shaking!” 

“I’m not lying,” said Brian. He sounded deeply affronted, which Theo dimly suspected that he would have found hilarious if he weren’t…whatever he was right now. “I have a photo.” 

“Give me your bloody phone,” Bill said, and snatched the phone out of Brian’s hand. “I’m seeing this before myself before I even think of showing it to…oh my God.” Theo craned his neck back so he could see what the hell was going on. Bill’s pale face was cheesy white, without even the normal flush in the cheeks, and his eyes were practically bulging out of his skull. “Oh, _God_. That’s.” He slapped a hand over his mouth and dropped the phone into Brian’s outstretched hand. “I’m not showing that to Theo.” 

“Bill?” Theo grabbed for Bill’s nearest hand, grasped at air, and finally found it. “He’s dead?” He drew Bill’s hand to his chest and squeezed hard enough for color to flood back into Bill’s face and a gasp to escape him. “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry!” 

Bill shook his head. “It’s all right,” he said faintly, his eyes locked into the middle distance rather than onto Theo’s. “He’s very dead. Very dead indeed, Theo, yes. Please tell me I have the willpower not to throw up.” 

“It’s that bad?” Theo released Bill’s hand. “Sorry. I mean, you’re not going to throw up.” 

“Brian, tell us what’s going on.” That was Dwight’s voice. Finally, some sanity in all this. Theo turned towards the voice and silently held out his hand, like he’d done with Mama when he was a little kid who didn’t want to get lost in a store, and Dwight took it, miracle of miracles. “Brian, talk.” Dwight came close enough to pat Theo’s head – Theo leaned into the touch – and continued. “I know there are kids here. You don’t have to give details.” 

Brian looked around, then sighed and cleared his throat (which was completely unnecessary in Theo’s opinion, seeing as everyone’s eyes were on him now, but Brian was a lot more theatrical than he liked to pretend). “This was someone who was, ah, acquainted with Theo,” he said. “Smaug had been bragging that he’d…let’s say he’d nearly taken Theo off this mortal coil.” For once, Theo appreciated the euphemisms. “He also had a knife. One thing led to another, and now Smaug is dead.” 

“Who was that guy?” Freddy piped up, as if the night needed an impetus to get any worse. “Was he one of Uncle Theo’s old boyfriends?” 

To Brian’s credit, smooth bastard that he was, he didn’t let that affect the strangely _expressionless_ expression on his face. “No, not that,” he said. “He was familiar with some of your uncle’s writings.” 

“Oh, his history stuff.” Freddy nodded. “He’s got to do it so he can keep being a professor.” 

Somewhere in Theo’s abdomen, whatever muscle was responsible for making him feel like he was about to pee himself relaxed. Or tightened. Bill was the anatomy expert in the family, not him. “Yes, Freddy, my history stuff,” he said. “I meet a lot of people. Probably some of them are in prison. Statistics.” 

“Ninety percent of everything is crap?” Galil volunteered. 

“No,” Theo said, “that’s Sturgeon’s Law. Statistics is...my head really hurts.” Head between your knees to keep from passing out, right? It seemed as good a piece of advice as any, so he hung his head as far down as he could and let his arms dangle down until his fingertips touched the floor. 

After that, the noise in the room receded to a weird sort of buzz in his ears, while various hands whose owners he didn’t recognize patted his back at intervals. His breathing slowly began to stabilize, although his position meant that his head was still pounding. Still not a bad trade-off when Smaug was dead. “Iggy’s gone,” Theo told his knees. “Someone finally shanked him.” 

“Theo, there are kids here!” Danny, of course. 

“They would have heard it eventually,” Dinah countered. “The ones who’ll even remember are old enough to handle it. Freddy and Geula are the only ones here who aren’t teenagers.” 

“Uncle Theo,” said the Freddy in question, “you should probably sit up. There’s too much blood in your head.” 

Freddy listened to enough of Bill’s medical rants to know what he was talking about. Time to face the music. “Fine, you’re right,” Theo said, sat back up, and swayed in his seat. “Whoa.” His vision momentarily blurred before resolving. “Must’ve sat up too fast. Everyone mind clearing off?” 

“Can I get in your lap?” Freddy asked as the crowd dispersed. 

“Sure,” Theo said before Bill could object. “Hop on, kid.” _Smaug is dead_ \- goddammit, how long were these thoughts going to keep popping up? “You doing okay? This is heavy stuff.” 

Freddy paused in his climbing and faced Theo, putting his hands on his shoulders. “You shouldn’t worry about me,” he said. “You should just give me a big hug and stop worrying. He can’t hurt you anymore.” 

“You got that from Family Guy.” Phil and Caleb had a lot to answer for during the time Theo was locked up, apparently. 

“Yeah,” Freddy countered, “but it’s true.” 

It was. “Okay,” Theo said, and put his head on his nephew’s shoulder. He’d spoken enough – he could be quiet now, and just think about how maybe now he could be free. “Okay.” 

Okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Lo y'khol l'he'emeen_ : I don't understand (Hebrew)
> 
> I'm godihatethisfreakingcat on Tumblr. :)


	30. Mine Own Vineyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains aren't the only places to find creepy-crawlies, as much as Theo might like writing about them, and every book has to come to a (very relieving) end.

“I’m not sending this ending out, Theo! I refuse!” 

“Well, maybe you should try to get inside my head and see why I chose it!” 

Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo were fighting again, but now it wasn’t about important things, just book stuff. Freddy grinned and finished his orange juice. They told him last week that Uncle Theo was someone called T.D. Darrens and he mustn’t tell anyone because it was a huge secret, but they would dedicate the book to ‘F,’ so he’d know that they remembered it was his idea. T.D. Darrens and W.B. Took, that was what they were going to call themselves, or something like that. 

He couldn’t tell Sam, either. That was the only bad part. But there were things he couldn’t tell Sam anyway, like how he ran out of the room at home whenever there was a really scary horror movie with blood makeup on TV. Sam liked horror movies; he said it was because his brothers gave him immunity. He was already eight and he knew things like that. Freddy wouldn’t be eight until next September, and sometimes he thought that Sam would always be smarter than him, even though Sam never acted like Freddy was dumb. 

Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo came out of the study, Uncle Bill chasing Uncle Theo, who held his laptop over his head. “Give me that!” Uncle Bill said, making grabby hands at the laptop. “Don’t tell me you don’t have three thousand alternate endings written for that.” 

“Thorin hurt Bilbo!” Uncle Theo snapped. “He needs to die for the redemption arc.” 

“Are you suggesting you need a redemption arc?” Uncle Bill put his hands on his hips. “Don’t feed me bullshite and tell me it’s chocolate, Theodor Derensky! Thorin is your vehicle for working out your feelings, I understand that. You’re not allowed to kill him off for your own guilt!” 

“Ew,” Freddy said, wrinkling his nose. “No one thinks poo is chocolate.” 

Both of his uncles whipped their heads around to look at him, and Uncle Bill went pink. “Hello, Freddy,” he said. “We’re just hashing out the end of our book. No need to fret.” 

“I’m not fretting.” Freddy slurped the edge of his juice glass to get any last drops. This was the last of the bottle, and Uncle Bill wouldn’t go to the store again until the grocery list was full. It would probably be a few more days. “I know you’re talking about book stuff. Thorin shouldn’t die.” 

Uncle Theo blinked. “Why?” 

_Because I love him_ , Freddy wanted to say. Thorin was like Uncle Theo, so he loved him like an uncle. Uncle Theo probably wanted a reason with logic, though. “You said it was anti-Jewish to kill him, remember?” he said. “It was last month or something.” 

“I said it was anti-Semitic to kill off the whole Line of Durin,” Uncle Theo corrected, and put the laptop down on the table. “Bill said something about Dain becoming the king, and I thought he was serious and meant all three dying, so I…I kind of overreacted.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I still stand by that, by the way. I’m not eliminating all my Dwarves to please a bunch of anti-Semitic sons of –“ 

“Theo,” Uncle Bill said. 

“Well, if they’re the kind of people who read my books and don’t bother to notice all the Jewish overtones, reason has it that they’re probably the kind of people who have subtle anti-Semitic biases!” 

Uncle Bill pursed his lips. “We’re not in a classroom, Theo. No one in this room has tenure except you. Please calm down.” 

“What’ll happen if Thorin doesn’t die?” Freddy asked. “Does it mess up the story? Oh, are you going to write more books after this? I want more Hobbit!” It was so much fun doing brain storms with Uncles, even if Uncle Theo was going crazy the whole time and no one knew. 

“I…yeah, maybe,” Uncle Theo said after a few seconds. “I had this outline, but I didn’t…Bill, we need to write more books.” He suddenly whirled around and spread his hands in front of him, facing Uncle Bill, as his face lit up. “Bill. The Ring. We can make Thorin the King of Erebor when the Ring gets destroyed, however that happens. Bilbo can be his consort! Shire-Erebor liaison or…I mean, he’d be really old then if it’s decades, but maybe the Ring…” He trailed off. 

“Keeps him alive?” Uncle Bill suggested. 

“That sounds evil,” Freddy said. 

Uncle Theo nodded hard. “It _is_ evil – that’s the point!” 

“Are you implying I’m evil?” said Uncle Bill. 

“No.” Uncle Theo gave him a look like he couldn’t believe they’d made it through writing an entire book, because Uncle Bill had no imagination. Freddy had known Uncle Theo’s looks for a long time, and he could probably translate them for his own book. Maybe it would be a best-seller. “The _ring_ is evil, Bill. There has to be some kind of trade-off for it turning people invisible. I mean, it made Gollum completely nuts, didn’t it?” 

Uncle Bill shivered. “You don’t have to remind me.” 

Freddy had heard this story before. There was a creepy guy Uncle Bill treated for a skin thing, and he got obsessed and sneaked into the locker room and stole some of Uncle Bill’s underpants. If it weren’t so mean to wish it on someone who had stuff wrong with his head, Freddy would wish he was dead for scaring his uncle like that. “Did he call you a precious, like Gollum does?” he asked. 

“I don’t want to think about it,” said Uncle Bill, rubbing his eyes with the heels of both hands. “Suffice it to say that the man is disturbed, and I hope he’s gotten the help he clearly needed. Gotcha!” He snatched up the laptop from the table. “Now I won’t let you kill Thorin off.” 

But Uncle Theo was taller, and he took the laptop back before Uncle Bill could finish his victory speech. “Jesus F. Lipschitz,” he said. “Fine. I’ll go with the other ending.” He squinted, his eyes looking off into the distance like he was trying to focus on something far away. “I need to start the next book. Like, right now.” 

Sudden raindrops _ping_ ed against the windows, making Freddy startle and look out. “It’s raining,” he said. Maybe his uncles hadn’t noticed. “Are you going to go write? It’s a good day for writing, isn’t it?” 

“Mm, that’s what they say,” said Uncle Bill. “Theo. If Octavia thinks the downer ending is the only way to sell the book…” 

Uncle Theo was already shaking his head by the time Uncle Bill trailed off. “No, she won’t,” he said. “I’m my own worst critic – even I can admit that. She’ll want the legacy of the line of Durin to –“

“Does that mean you’re the Line of Derensky?” Freddy broke in. “You know, you and Auntie Dee and the cousins. Except you’ve got a kid and Thorin hasn’t.” He patted his chest with his hand. Mummy and Daddy probably wouldn’t mind him thinking that Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo were his parents, too. They’d stayed up plenty of late nights and all that other parenting stuff. “Fili and Kili have got to stay alive and have their own kids! Phil and Caleb will be angry if you don’t let them have that.” 

Uncle Theo stuck the laptop under his arm. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing his chin. “It’d make some good continuity for the next book. Thorin’s next challenge, right? Some war over the ring and triumph over the forces of evil. The Hobbits’d be the ones I focused on, though.” 

Freddy wasn’t sure what ‘continuity’ meant. Probably something a bit boring. “If the next book’s going to be about Hobbits, you should call that one The Hobbit,” he said. “Maybe call this one, um, Lord of the Ring or something.” Just like in Harry Potter – if you had a magical object, you were the lord or the master of it, and Master of the Ring sounded weird. 

“Lord of the Ring,” Uncle Theo repeated, that far-away look still in his eyes. “I’ll think about it, Freddo. Bill, we can hash out whatever ending we want in the study.” Huh. Usually, Uncle Theo would say ‘my study,’ but it made sense to call it just ‘the study’ if they were both working in there. “Either way, Bilbo’s cracking wise about how tea is at four and all that Hobbity shit. Sorry, Freddo.” He looked guiltily in Freddy’s direction. “Language.” 

Freddy shrugged. Noah said worse language than that practically every Hillel. 

“I still think your language is a bit archaic,” Uncle Bill said as they left the room. “I don’t mean the ‘shit’ bit, I mean the ‘for he was their mother’s brother’ bit. Are we still going with ‘sister-sons’?” 

“That’s the point, Bill. The archaic language is the _point_ , dammit…” 

Their voices trailed off down the hall. When he couldn’t hear them after straining his ears, Freddy looked at his juice glass. “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us,” he said just because he could, and went to put the glass in the dishwasher. 

Two packets of Little Debbie cakes later (because his uncles weren’t there to tell him no, so he was going to seize the bull by the horns and ride it a long time), Freddy tilted his head at some noises coming from the direction of the study. _It doesn’t sound like anyone’s going crazy_ , he assured himself. Ever since Uncle Theo did that one time, he had to be so careful…he shivered even thinking about it. “Uncles, are you all right?” he yelled. 

“Yes, dear,” said Uncle Bill, louder than the noises. “Theo, stop that!” 

Uncle Theo moaned. “It’s over. It’s over, I can’t fucking believe it, it’s over. I’m done!” 

“What’s over?” Freddy asked. 

The answer didn’t come right away, but Freddy didn’t have to wait long. Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo appeared in the kitchen, Uncle Theo’s face pink and sweaty like he’d had a fever and it only broke a minute ago. “We finished the book, kid,” he said. “Your Uncle Bill and I finally chose our ending. What do you think of that?” Uncle Bill was grinning like a total loony behind him. 

“Whoa,” Freddy murmured. That _was_ big news. “Congratulations! Are you gonna send it to Miss Octavia now?” She’d been sending emails and phoning for a while now. People wanted more books, since Uncle Theo hadn’t published in a bit. At least that was what Uncle Bill said while Uncle Theo was on the phone, trying to calm his agent down. 

“Yes, we are,” Uncle Bill told him. His eyes lit on the snack cake wrappers and he frowned. “What on Earth have you been eating?” 

“Leave him alone,” Uncle Theo said. “He’s the reason we have this book in the first place.” He took Uncle Bill’s face in his hands, and a second of looking at each other later, they were kissing. 

It was nice that they were finally being lovey again, but Freddy still couldn’t watch without feeling sick. Ugh, they were using their _tongues_. “Ew!” he said. “If you’re doing that, I’m going to Sam’s.” 

“Have fun,” Uncle Theo mumbled without breaking away from Uncle Bill’s mouth. 

“Call if you need anything,” Uncle Bill added in the same way. 

Gross. Old people were weird. They would probably go upstairs soon and do whatever made their bed bang against the wall – they hadn’t done that since way before Uncle Theo went crazy. In Freddy’s opinion, his uncles had more important things to do than move their furniture so that it made scuff marks or something. “Bye,” he said, and ran through the foyer and out the front door, checking only to make sure that Rug wasn’t about to try a prison break before he closed the door and left. 

It was nice out, cool but not too cold even with the rain. Good, he didn’t need to go back in and get a sweatshirt. Freddy went across the street to the Gamgees’ and knocked on the front door; since it was Saturday and spring break to boot, Sam would definitely be home. They’d watched after-dinner movies just last night. “Hi, Dr. Gamgee,” he said when Sam’s mum opened the door. “Is Sam here?” 

“You know he is,” she said with a laugh. “He’s in his room. Go on up.” 

“Thank you!” Freddy called over his shoulder, and rushed to do just that. 

Sam’s door was open, as usual, and Sam himself was playing with Legos. His hair looked like gold in the light, much nicer than Freddy’s dark hair. Merry and Pip had light hair, too, but not as nice as Sam’s. “Hi, Freddy!” Sam dropped the Lego he was holding and came over, hugging Freddy so hard that he gasped. “Do you want to play Legos? I’m building, and you can help.” 

“Yes.” Freddy followed Sam to the half-built structure in the middle of his bedroom floor. Under it was a faded carpet with a pattern on it, which Mr. Gamgee said had belonged to his grandfather when Freddy asked. In fact, if Great-Grandpa Gamgee hadn’t died and left Mr. Gamgee the house, Sam wouldn’t live here. He’d been a hundred, so Freddy never felt too guilty about being glad. “Are you doing a medieval castle?” 

Sam nodded. “Uh-huh. I’m just pretending there are slit windows, though. I don’t have that kind.” He squinted at his castle, then pointed at the jumble of pieces next to it. “Can you give me that flag on top? I wanna put it on top of the tower.” 

“Can I do it?” 

“Sure,” Sam said, and Freddy finished off the tower. It looked much nicer with the flag on. “Where are your uncles?” 

“At home,” said Freddy, making a face. “I think they’re moving furniture.” 

Sam stuck out his tongue and made a much better face than Freddy’s own. “Ew!” he said. “Mom and Dad do that all the time. Maybe that’s why grown-ups have so many furniture stores, what do you think?” 

“It smells funny after,” Freddy told him. “Uncle Theo said it’s furniture polish. That’s a really weird furniture polish.” 

“Mm.” Sam shook his head just like his dad. He’d probably grow up to look like him, too, all big and broad-shouldered with a tummy. Uncle Bill called him ‘stocky.’ “Can we just build for a while? I don’t want to talk about Mom and Dad.” 

Freddy nodded and reached for another Lego. “Sure. I want to build another tower.” 

Sam enthusiastically agreed to that, and they built quietly for a while. This was the best part of being around Sam; they didn’t have to talk, just sit and read or build or watch telly. His friend was the kind of person who could talk with different parts of his body. Freddy had learned lots of expressions in two and a half years of knowing him, like how when his shoulders hunched forward and his face drew in like he’d tasted a lemon, he was worried, even if he didn’t say anything. ‘He wears his heart on his sleeve,’ Sam’s mum had said once when Freddy came to her about Sam crying over a sad YouTube video, and once she explained what it meant, he’d known it was true. 

“Hamish and Harold Junior are in trouble,” Sam suddenly said. 

“Really? What’d they do?” Freddy asked. Sam’s brothers were big boys in high school, and Hamish was going to graduate after the end of next school year. Freddy didn’t know anything that you could do to punish someone so old. They were too clever to get put in their rooms; they’d think of something to do.

“Mom found them smoking a pot doobie behind the house. She got really mad and they’re grounded for two weeks.” Sam added another brick to the edge of the castle moat. “She said it was really lucky they didn’t do it at school, ‘cause they’d get suspended.” 

“Whoa,” Freddy said, abandoning his castle in favor of lying on the floor. Sam’s bedroom rug was very soft even if it was faded, and the floor past the edges was nice and cool on his fingers. “Noah used to smoke those before he got together with Dwight.” Noah was still a bit awful sometimes, but that didn’t mean he didn’t exist or have a past anymore. Freddy had once tried to think about whether ignoring Noah meant erasing everything he ever did and given himself a headache, and Uncle Theo said that that was why the field of philosophy was a minefield of crap. 

Sam scrambled away from the castle and lay down next to Freddy, grabbing his hand. It felt nice. Sam’s hands were always warm, and Sam was the best best friend ever. “Yeah, but they’re not grown-ups,” he said. “You have to be twenty-one to smoke it. Hamish isn’t even eighteen yet. Mom’s making them clean the house when they’re home.” 

“I like cleaning the house,” Freddy said. “Uncle Theo wraps me up in an old towel and pushes me across the kitchen floor with his feet. He calls it a dusting burrito.” 

“Man!” Sam exclaimed. “I wanna be a dusting burrito.” 

Freddy shook his head against the floor. It kind of hurt – nope, bad idea. He hoped he wouldn’t bruise under his hair. “It only works because I’m used to Rug,” he said. “Sometimes he thinks I’m a rolling toy and he goes bonkers on the towel. I’m lucky he doesn’t try to get my feet, usually.” 

“Carpet likes licking your feet,” Sam pointed out.

“Still doesn’t hurt as much as getting bit.” 

Sam accepted that with a shrug that Freddy could feel in the movement of his arm, and they stared at the ceiling for a bit. Sam’s ceiling had water damage from a leak in the roof a few years ago, and Mr. Gamgee was always saying he meant to get it fixed, but he never did. They probably needed money or something. “Sam, are your mum and dad okay with money?” Freddy asked. “Oops. Sorry, is that okay to ask?” 

“No, it’s okay. They don’t tell me a lot.” Sam squeezed Freddy’s hand. “I think they’re saving up so we can go to college, ‘specially the boys. Daisy and May won’t have to go for a while.” Sam’s sisters were ten and twelve, but that was still pretty old. They were _very_ tall; Daisy was already up to her dad’s shoulder. She’d probably be taller than Uncle Bill in a few years. “Mom’s chief resident now. Dad says she’ll probably get to be an attending next year, and that means she’ll get a raise.” 

Freddy frowned. “Attending what?” 

“Attending doctor. It means you don’t make mistakes anymore.” 

“But what if you get sued?” Freddy asked. “If you can’t make any mistakes, won’t people sue you if you do? Uncle Bill makes them sometimes and he was a nurse before I was even born!” 

“Well, nurses don’t really get sued,” Sam said. “I don’t think they do. Maybe they do, but I never hear anything about it. Anyway, it just means you’ve been there a long time and you can stay there. If she gets to be an attending, we can stay here. I hope she does.”

“And you can live across the street from me forever.” If Sam left, the only other people around would be old people and Mr. Mortensen. The Eltahawys had a kid, Aisha, but they were all the way down the street and Freddy’s uncles hated him going out after dark almost as much as they hated Mr. Mortensen. It was something about Uncle Vince and the time Uncle Theo got attacked, but whenever Freddy asked, Uncle Theo got all quiet. “Do you want to hug me, Sam?” 

Sam got to his feet, Freddy followed, and they hugged without even having to confirm it. Even though Sam hugged too hard, Freddy didn’t mind. He’d just have to lift weights so he could be big and strong, too. “Want to go downstairs?” Sam asked. “I think my mom said she wanted to bake cookies. We can probably lick the bowl if we help her. Oh! We can probably bring some to your uncles, too.” 

Freddy sniffed the air. “It smells sweet,” he said, and sniffed harder. “Is that ginger? Your mum makes the best gingerbread.” 

“Yeah, probably.” 

That was all the invitation Freddy needed to leap up, and still holding hands, he and Sam ran down the stairs. The carpet was old and rough here, so they didn’t fall like they did on the wooden stairs at Freddy’s house, although it was pretty funny when Rug slid down the stairs and ran off. “Hey, Mom!” Sam said once they reached the kitchen. “Can Freddy and me have cookies?” 

“Freddy and _I_ ,” Dr. Gamgee corrected, pulling her head out of the cupboard. She had flour on her face. “Cookies are in the oven, Sam. They should be ready in about ten minutes. Why don’t you help your dad?” She pointed to the kitchen table, where Mr. Gamgee sat with his computer. “He’s doing one of those Internet surveys.” 

“Sammy-boy!” said Mr. Gamgee, grinning and beckoning them over. “I have to give my opinion on this drink. What do you think?” 

Sam squinted at the screen. “I dunno. It looks like a soda?” 

“Well, you know what I said it looks like?” his dad said. He didn’t wait for an answer. “It looks like a bad idea!” He howled with laughter, pounded on the table, and then subsided, sighing happily. “Dad humor at its finest,” he said, turning in his chair to face Dr. Gamgee. “I gotta wonder why your mom married me, Sammy.” 

“Hmm,” said Sam. His cheeks hollowed and his jaw moved as he chewed on the inside of his mouth, but finally, his eyes lit up. “Oh! Was it ‘cause she was pregnant?” 

Mr. Gamgee nearly knocked over his chair, and Dr. Gamgee spat out her mint. “Now where on Earth did you hear something like that?” she asked when she was finished catching her breath, hands on her apron-covered hips. 

“Hamish and Harold Junior,” Freddy and Sam said together. Freddy grinned at Sam and got a smile back; he’d just been guessing, but it was good to know he was right. “I think they were joking,” Sam continued. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to insult you or anything.” 

“Hamish and Harold Junior,” Dr. Gamgee repeated under her breath, rolling her eyes. “Of course. My sons are ridiculous…not you, Sam,” she said to her _best_ son. Freddy’s gaze darted to his friend’s face in time to see how stricken Sam looked. “I think this conversation has run its natural course. Hal, do you have any jobs for them?” 

“Actually, I do.” Mr. Gamgee scrunched up his mouth and stroked his chin like a wise old sage in some movie. “Sammy, Freddy, could you two do me a massive favor and turn over the dirt in the garden? I’m going to be planting in a month or two. The spades and gloves are in the usual place, Sammy.” 

Sam gasped happily and jumped up and down a few times, something Freddy had only ever seen happy in the movies. He guessed that Sam’s sleeve-heart had so much emotion in it that Sam had to exercise or something to let it float off into the air. Uncle Bill would probably know if he asked him later. “Yes, Dad!” 

“What’s turning over the dirt?” Freddy asked. Even if he didn’t know, his stomach wiggled with excitement, too. He’d never been allowed to do anything in the Gamgees’ big garden except pick things, and that could get old when you did it every day in the summer. 

“Take a spade, start digging, and mess it up as much as you can,” said Dr. Gamgee. “It distributes the nutrients or something. I don’t know – I’m a people doctor, not a soil doctor. Sam can help you. He already knows how to do it.” She opened the oven door and shook her head. “No, these definitely need a few more minutes. I don’t need you kids begging in here.” 

Sam took Freddy’s hand. “’Kay, Mom. Freddy, I’ll show you how. Let’s get the stuff out of the garage.” 

“Thanks, Dr. Gamgee and Mr. Gamgee,” Freddy called over his shoulder as they left the kitchen. 

“Harold and Michelle!” both Gamgees shouted back, but it was probably too late for Freddy to answer them right. He’d do better next time. 

Sam took him out to the garage, where they grabbed spades with last year’s dirt all over them, and then brought him to the backyard. “Where’s your brothers and sisters?” Freddy asked. “Don’t they have spring break, too?” They’d all been there last night, hogging the popcorn while Freddy and Sam tried to watch Moana. Sam’s brothers were the worst with that. 

“Hamish and Harold Junior are in their room. They’re probably sleeping or something.” 

“It’s way late!” 

“Yeah, but they’re teenagers. That’s what Mom says.” Sam squatted down by the big patch of dirt that had housed the Gamgees’ garden last year. It took over most of the yard, and Freddy got to pick tomatoes and green beans and pumpkins. “Daisy and May are at this camp at the Y, and Uncle Andy’s watching Molly ‘cause she likes his cat.” 

Freddy dug his fingers into the dirt, which was cold and slimy, just the way he liked it. “I didn’t know your uncle had a cat,” he said. 

“He just got it. It’s not pretty like Rug and Carpet, though. I think it looks like it went through a car wash.” Sam handed him one of the spades. “His girlfriend likes it. I think he might marry her.” He put his hand over Freddy’s and guided the spade towards the dirt. “Okay, you just lift up the dirt and toss it everywhere. All over.” Freddy tried, and Sam broke into a grin. “Yeah, like that! We gotta do the whole garden.” 

He watched Sam dig up a few spadefuls of dirt just to be careful, but once he was sure he wouldn’t mess up the whole garden, Freddy started digging just as fast himself. “Do you think maybe your dad said we should do this because he doesn’t want to?” he asked. 

“So what?” Sam answered. “We like doing it. If he doesn’t, we’ll probably be better at it.” 

“Okay,” Freddy said. “You’re probably right.” He squished his fingers around in the shallow hole he’d just made, found something even softer than dirt, and pulled it up. “Ew, look, I found a worm!” It was big and pink, with little lines pushed into it all the way down, and it squirmed between his fingers. “Come look, it’s awesome!” 

Sam scrambled over on his hands and knees and held out one dirty palm. Freddy dropped the worm in, leaning over so they could both admire it. “Mom says the big ones are called nightcrawlers,” Sam said. “This one’s really big.” 

“But it’s daytime,” Freddy told him. A cold raindrop hit the back of his neck and ran down his shirt, making him briefly shiver. “Are you sure?” 

“I dunno.” Sam put the worm back into the dirt and patted it, and as he came back up to a sitting position, he suddenly gasped. “Hey! I bet there’s a bunch of worms in there. We’re gonna do the whole garden. We should find them and, like, make a worm colony or something. We could sell tickets!” 

Sam had the best ideas. “Do you think we could make a lot of money?” Freddy said. “More than the lemonade stand? That really sucked.” 

“Uh-huh. Everyone likes circuses.” 

That made sense. Freddy happily went back to digging, throwing the shovelfuls of dirt across the garden without a care to where they landed. It was all the same dirt, after all. Even when his fingers started to go numb and his knees ached with all the moving around in cold, wet soil, he kept going – this was at least as fun as video games. You didn’t find a random spider in those, like he did after half the garden was done. “Whoa!” Sam squealed when Freddy shoved it in his face, cowering. “Put it back!” 

Random spiders were fun, but only so much. “Okay.” Freddy carefully put the spider down and patted Sam’s back. “Are you okay? Are you scared of spiders?” 

“Nuh-uh, you just surprised me,” Sam said, and stuck his tongue out at him. “Don’t do that! They crawl up your nose and stuff. I’d have to go to the hospital.” 

“They do _not_ ,” Freddy began – Sam didn’t know anything about what you had to go to the hospital for! – but was interrupted when something crashed behind him, metal on metal. “What’s that?” 

“Oh, crap, it’s a raccoon!” Sam said in a panicked whisper, dropping back to his hands and knees. “Don’t move.” 

Freddy mimicked him and looked across the yard. “It’s on top of your rubbish bins,” he whispered. 

“Yeah, it’s eating something.” 

Freddy bit his lip. The raccoon did have something in its little black paws, maybe a bun, and it seemed to be focusing much more on its treat than the two of them. It was steadily chewing on the food, and didn’t even appear to notice the rain that dampened its fur. “Is it going to charge?” 

“I don’t think raccoons charge,” Sam said, “but we gotta go in. Mom and Dad’ll know what to do.” 

“How do we get back in? The raccoon’s right there.” It didn’t look like it was about to leave anytime soon, either. As they watched, it put down its food, dipped its paws into a puddle of rainwater collecting on the overturned lid, and began to wash its hands. 

Sam scratched his chin. “I think we just have to run really fast. Can you do that?” Freddy nodded. He and Uncle Theo always ran really fast across parking lots when it was raining, holding hands the whole time. “Okay. Ready, set, _go!_ ” 

They took off at a run out of the yard and didn’t stop until the back door was safely locked behind them. “Did the raccoon get in?” Freddy panted. 

“No, it’s still out there. Dad?” Sam shouted. “Are you there? We need help!” 

Mr. Gamgee appeared with a cookie in one hand and crumbs around his mouth, wide-eyed. “Are you two okay?” he asked. “Sammy, what happened?” 

“We were digging up the yard and there was a noise and there’s a raccoon on top of the trash cans,” Sam said in a rush, wrapping his arms around Mr. Gamgee’s legs and hugging him tight. “I’m scared, Dad! I think it might have babies.” 

Mr. Gamgee went very still. “Babies or rabies?” he said. “The distinction’s important, Sam.” 

“I dunno. It’s just on top of the trash can.” 

“Oh, Jesus,” Mr. Gamgee sighed. “Michelle! I said we needed to replace those trash cans!” 

“What?” 

Mr. Gamgee gently pried Sam off him and shook his head. “Just a second, Michelle. Boys, follow me.” He led them to the kitchen, where Dr. Gamgee had a bunch of lovely-smelling cookies out on the cooling racks. They looked like snickerdoodles; Uncle Bill made those sometimes. “We need to replace those trash cans so things can’t get into them,” Mr. Gamgee repeated. “There’s a raccoon out there. Scared the living hell out of the boys. Sam, you ask before you take that cookie!” 

Sam paused with a guilty look on his face, a cookie halfway to his mouth. “I was gonna ask,” he muttered. “Mom, can I have one?” 

“Just go ahead and eat it,” Dr. Gamgee said. “Harold, if you’re so worried about the raccoon, go chase it off. I can guarantee it wouldn’t just be sitting there if it had rabies…hold on.” She strode over to Sam and knelt, putting a hand on his shoulder. “This is important, Sam. What was the raccoon doing on the trash can?” 

“Sitting there,” Sam told her. “It was eating something. Oh, and then it washed its hands.” 

She nodded and stood back up. “Well, I’m no zoologist, but I think that’s normal raccoon behavior,” she said. “Not that we want it in our neighborhood. Harold, like I said, go chase it off if you’re so worried. It’ll probably leave on its own.” 

Sam silently handed Freddy a cookie, which he bit into. _Oh_. He felt his eyes go wide. These were even better than Uncle Bill’s cookies, even though he would never tell him – Uncle Bill worked hard enough taking care of people’s cancerating wounds and sea diff that he didn’t need to have his cooking insulted, too. But these were so buttery, and the cinnamon sugar on top crunched between his teeth when he bit down. Uncle Bill preferred to use that olive oil margarine or plain oil, ever since that guy at work called him an insurance risk. “These are really good,” he said, and hoped he wasn’t interrupting. 

Dr. Gamgee’s face softened. “Thank you, Freddy,” she said. “Harold, are you done in there?” 

Mr. Gamgee emerged from the laundry room with a broom in his hand, minus the dustpan. “Yup,” he replied. “Oh, hold on.” He took a knife from the block over the sink and hefted it in his free hand. “Okay, now I’m ready.” 

“Really, a knife?” Dr. Gamgee rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “That’s complete overkill.” 

“Not really,” said Mr. Gamgee. “The broom’s my weapon. This is just insurance.” 

“Just…” She rubbed the skin between her eyes. “Don’t bring raccoon guts into the house if you can avoid it.” 

“ _Ew_ ,” Freddy said. “He’s not a cat.” That was why Uncle Theo didn’t let Rug go outside. The last time he did, Rug brought in a snake, and both uncles almost had a heart attack. 

Sam tapped Mr. Gamgee’s shoulder. “Dad, can we go with you? Please?” 

“Sure, okay. Just stay behind me. Can you do that, Sammy?” 

Sam saluted with a grin. “Yes, sir!” 

It was raining harder when they got outside, and the raccoon was still there. Mr. Gamgee shuffled up towards it, brandishing his broom, but stopped when he was a few feet away. “Hey!” he shouted. “Go away, you!” 

“Dad?” Sam asked. “Why does it wash its hands like that?” 

Mr. Gamgee shrugged. “Screwed if I know,” he said, which was also something that Uncle Theo liked to say, except he used the F-word that wasn’t ‘feck’ instead of saying ‘screw.’ “Maybe they’re really tiny people on the inside. I said go away!” 

“Hey!” Sam protested. 

“Not you, Sammy. I’m talking to the little burglar.” 

“Yeah, go away, little burglar!” Freddy chimed in. “You’re getting all wet anyway. You should go hide under someone’s porch and make trouble there.” 

Mr. Gamgee inched forward and brandished the broom, landing a hesitant poke on the raccoon and then flinching like he was afraid it would jump on him. “Come on,” he muttered, and poked again. “Sheesh.” 

One more light poke and the raccoon finally hopped off the bin, then got up on the fence and started chittering angrily. That seemed kind of pointless to Freddy, because it still had the rest of its bun. “What’re you so mad about?” he asked it. “You’ll have your snack for a while if you eat slowly. And it’s not your bin. You have to respect their property.” 

Mr. Gamgee snorted. “I don’t think they really think that way, Freddy,” he said. “You know, this is probably the best we’re gonna – oh, there he goes.” 

“Maybe they don’t like you, Mr. Gamgee,” Freddy teased. “Raccoons, I mean. Do people ever have raccoons as pets?” 

“Probably.” 

For a second, Freddy wondered what it would be like to have a tame raccoon. It could eat the things he didn’t want, like string beans when Uncle Bill forgot them on the stove and blanched them too long, or coffee ice cream. But then he remembered that Rug would probably try to beat it up, and raccoons had big claws, didn’t they? He didn’t want Rug getting hurt, even though Uncle Theo called him a grumpy old curmudgeon. Pets were very complicated sometimes. 

“Dad,” Sam said, “can we do the rest of the garden?” 

“Hmm,” said Mr. Gamgee, and put out his hand. “I don’t know, Sam, it’s raining kind of hard. I think the garden can probably wait for another day, can’t you? And you don’t want Freddy out here all cold and wet – it’s rude to make him stay out in weather like this.” 

“It’s okay,” Freddy told them, and copied Mr. Gamgee’s movement. The rain had his hand completely wet within a second or two. “I really don’t mind.” 

Mr. Gamgee patted both him and Sam on the back. “That’s good,” he said, “but I do. Your uncles would probably have my head if I let you take an outdoor shower like that. Tell you what, why don’t we go in and have cookies? We probably have some hot chocolate mix somewhere to go with it.” 

The dirt sounded fun, but warm cookies sounded better right now, and the garden would probably be even grosser after the rain had stopped. They’d find lots of worms then. “Okay,” Freddy said. “You have a deal, Mr. Gamgee.” 

“ _Harold_ ,” said Mr. Gamgee. “Cripes.” 

Freddy shrugged. Too much respect was better than none, or at least that was what everyone in his family thought. Maybe American white people were different than English ones. 

Back inside, Hamish and Harold Junior came thundering down the stairs halfway through Freddy’s second cookie. “Hey, didn’t know you were here,” said Harold Junior, who was taller than his brother and had shoulders almost as broad as Mr. Gamgee’s. Freddy definitely didn’t want to see what he was like when he got mad. “What’s good, Little Baggins?” 

“Everything is good, and I’m not little,” Freddy said. He hoped they wouldn’t start eating the cookies and spitting bits all over, but in two years of being Sam’s friend, he’d learned that that wasn’t a very likely hope. 

“You did ask for it,” Mr. Gamgee told Harold Junior. “Leave Freddy alone, Hals. He’s warming up.” 

“I think I’m warm, actually,” Freddy said, and glanced at Sam. It was nice to hang out with him, but right now he thought he might be more comfortable at home. There weren’t any big brothers to clunk around and make things awkward there. “Sam, is it okay if I go home? I’m just…overstimulated.” Uncle Theo said that when he wanted a reason to leave somewhere. 

Sam squeezed Freddy’s shoulder. “’S’okay. We’ll hang out tomorrow.” 

Freddy smiled. They did have more spring break to play, after all. “Okay.” He patted Sam’s shoulder in response and hopped off his chair. “Thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Gamgee. I’ll see if Uncle Bill can make cookies for you soon.” 

He only realized halfway across the street that he’d forgotten to use their real names again. Darn it. 

The rain had let up, but it hadn’t stopped, so Freddy was relieved when he found the front door unlocked. “Uncles?” he called. “Uncle Bill? Uncle Theo? You’re being irresponsible with the door.” 

“Oh…Freddo,” Uncle Theo said as he appeared at the top of the stairs. He didn’t have a shirt on, so Freddy took a second to stare at how hairy his chest was. That never got old. “What did you say?” 

Freddy wagged a finger at him like Danny. “The door wasn’t locked.” 

“Dear me, how absolutely terrible.” Uncle Bill came up behind Uncle Theo and kissed his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, either, and his belly flopped out over the waistband of his trousers like a pale little tire or something. Freddy wasn’t any good at metafloors. “I can’t imagine anything more odious than forgetting to lock the door. It’s a good thing we were here, wasn’t it?” 

“Mm-hm. Sam and I did the garden at his house.” He wouldn’t mention the raccoon, Freddy decided. Not for a while. They’d just freak out at him and probably call pest control. “We found worms, and I showed him a spider.” 

“I can see that!” Uncle Bill exclaimed. “You’re soaked to the skin, Freddy. Go change clothes and take those socks off before you get trench foot or worse.” 

Uncle Theo snorted. “When’s the last time you saw a case of trench foot?” 

“You’d be surprised at how shut-in the average toxoplasmosis sufferer can get,” Uncle Bill said, “and that’s hardly relevant if I know how one gets it, isn’t it? Who’s the nurse here?” 

Freddy didn’t wait around to see if Uncle Theo remembered who the nurse was, because his clothes _were_ wet and uncomfortable. A change into a jumper and jeans later and he was back in the kitchen. “Did you guys have fun?” he asked. “You know, when I was gone.” 

Uncle Bill went red, which made Freddy grin. The air didn’t smell like their weird furniture polish, so maybe they hadn’t moved furniture _all_ the way, but no shirts meant that they had had fun times. _Blech_. “That’s hardly any of your business, I think,” he said, and wiggled in his chair, dusting off his hands even though they were clean. “Your Uncle Theo and I have something we’d like to ask you.” 

“Yeah?” Freddy said, and took a closer look at Uncle Theo’s neck. There was a big purple mark on it that looked like a spider bite. They probably had an infestation in the neighborhood; he’d ask about it later. “What is it?” 

Uncle Theo cleared his throat. “How do you feel about siblings, Freddo?” 

“Siblings,” Freddy repeated. With the exceptions of Harold Junior and Hamish, and occasionally Sam’s older sisters as well, he liked all the sibling sets he’d met. “They’re nice. Whose are you talking about?” 

It turned out he liked the answer, but he liked the gobsmacked looks on Uncle Bill and Uncle Theo’s faces even more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have any older siblings, just younger ones, but I have to believe that Freddy's perception of other people's older siblings is fairly accurate, as far as big old teenagers go.


End file.
